


Ad Astra Per Magicae

by zathara001



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:02:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 31,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23393722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zathara001/pseuds/zathara001
Summary: John Sheppard's posting to Antarctica gets more interesting than he'd expected when he recognizes part of what they're working on as being similar to the Ancient Runes he'd once studied with his cousin Harry Potter.
Comments: 121
Kudos: 602





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> In a fandom as rich and robust as the Harry Potter fandom, there's not much that hasn't been done before, to the point that I'm never entirely certain where any given idea comes from - my own Muse/subconscious or another work I read sometime in the past that the Muse/subconscious wants to riff on. For this story, though, I can say that I first encountered certain concepts in the works of MaryRoyale and LeQuin, and I hereby thank them for their stories as well as the inspiration for this one. If you haven't read their works, why are you still here? Go! Read! This story will still be here when you get back, I promise.
> 
> In an excess of caution, I'm warning for a few bad words scattered throughout.
> 
> As always, all rights in this work are hereby given to the respective copyright owners of Harry Potter and Stargate: Atlantis.

In hindsight, the drone that almost shot him down was an omen of weirder things to come, John Sheppard decided as he reclined in a chair older than any pyramid, any cave painting, on Earth, staring at a holographic display of stars and galaxies that had bloomed into existence overhead.

"Did I do that?" he asked, even though the answer was so obvious he couldn't not know it.

Not ten minutes later, a vivacious redhead calling herself Dr. Elizabeth Weir was giving him a tour of the facility.

Well, if John were honest, it was less a tour and more a sales pitch to try to get him to join their expedition to another galaxy to find the fabled lost city of Atlantis.

He was about to brush her off with an, "I'll think about it," when a whiteboard caught his eye. More specifically, the symbols drawn on the whiteboard caught his eye.

"What's that?" he asked. "Those symbols, I mean?"

Weir's eyes lit up. "That's the alphabet of the Ancients. We've been studying it for years, and only understand a fraction -"

John's blood ran colder than could be explained by the Antarctic temperatures outside the base, and after a moment of shock, he cut off Weir's explanation with, "Where's General O'Neill?"

Weir blinked at him, obviously confused. "What?"

"I need to talk to the general," John said. "Where is he?"

"Major -"

Her expression made it clear that she wasn't eager to help - or maybe she just didn't like having her sales pitch interrupted - so John waved her off.

"Never mind, I'll find him myself." The base wasn't that big, after all, and most of the activity seemed to be on this level.

It took only a few minutes of searching, Weir hurrying to catch up with his longer strides and protesting every step, before John found O'Neill in conversation with a dark-haired man wearing glasses.

"General," John said, then flashed an apologetic grin at the other man. "Sorry to interrupt, General, but I need to speak to you. Privately. Now."

Which was, he admitted ruefully, a bit peremptory given the differences in their respective ranks. Maybe he should've gone for polite rather than urgent.

O'Neill didn't seem too put out about it as he responded, "About what, Major?"

"It has to do with this project, sir," John replied. "And information I have that may help - if I can get permission to talk with you about it."

"Permission?" Weir had caught up to him, and the incredulity in her tone would've made him laugh under other circumstances. "From who? Everyone here has clearance to know about the stargate."

"Except me, technically," John replied. "That aside, you wouldn't expect me to reveal anything about the stargate or Atlantis without permission. Why do you expect me to reveal something to you?"

That appeared to set Weir back on her heels, and John returned his attention to O'Neill. "Please, sir. I've made a number of oaths and vows related to my service and … otherwise. Please don't ask me to break one."

O'Neill studied him for a long moment, and apparently what he saw reassured him - or else John's fancy flying to save their asses, or maybe how the chair had reacted to him, had bought John a hearing.

"Okay," O'Neill said. "Who do you need permission from?"

John didn't hesitate. "The president."

O'Neill raised a sardonic eyebrow. "Will the vice-president do?"

John considered that for a moment, settling on, "Maybe?"

"Huh," O'Neill said. Then, "Somebody tell me what time it is in D.C."

:-:-:-:-:

Secure Compartmentalized Information Facilities were the same everywhere, John reflected as he watched O'Neill insert the correct keycard into its slot on the keyboard before starting the videoconference.

Moments later, Vice President Kinsey appeared on the screen.

"Good to see you again, Jack," Kinsey said. "Who's this with you?"

"Major John Sheppard," O'Neill replied. "He was my pilot down from McMurdo, did a bit of fancy flying to save our asses from a rogue drone."

"Pleasure to meet you, sir," John said.

"I'm fairly sure a bit of fancy flying, as you say, isn't the reason for this call. So, Jack - care to fill me in?"

"There's not much I can say, sir," O'Neill said. "Sheppard says he needs permission to talk about something that will help our crew down here."

Kinsey's sharp gaze landed on John. "And you can't discuss it with Jack? He's in charge of the entire program."

"Yes, sir," John said. "But he's not cleared to know something else. I'm not entirely sure you are, either."

Kinsey's eyebrows rose. "Really? And what is that?"

John didn't answer, other than to raise one eyebrow at O'Neill. After a moment, O'Neill huffed and hit the button to mute both audio and video while keeping the call active.

"This better not be a waste of his time, Sheppard," he said, "or that black mark you got from Afghanistan is going to look like a goddamned gold star."

"Sir," John said by way of acknowledgment.

When the door closed behind O'Neill, John un-muted the call, debating how to raise the subject.

Finally, he said, "Does the term MACUSA mean anything to you, sir?"

Kinsey paled but recovered his aplomb quickly. "How do you know about that?"

John met Kinsey's gaze as levelly as he could through the video connections. "My mother's family was magical."

"But she wasn't?" Kinsey asked with an insight John hadn't expected. At John's nod, he said, "Why do you bring this up, Major?"

"Because the alphabet of the Ancients is the same as what I saw my cousin working on as summer homework."

Kinsey looked as shocked as John had ever seen anyone look, and it took almost two full minutes before he cleared his throat. "Your cousin?"

"Yes, sir," John said, and then, because Kinsey would want to follow up on that, added, "Actually, first cousin once removed. His name's Harry - Harry Potter."

Huh. Judging by Kinsey's reaction Harry was known on this side of the Pond, too.

"I - see," Kinsey said. He cleared his throat. "Would you bring General O'Neill back in?"

John nodded, cut the audio and video, and opened the door to the SCIF. O'Neill lounged against the wall opposite the door, though his expression wasn't nearly as relaxed as his posture.

"Sir? The vice president wants to speak to you."

The door securely closed behind O'Neill, John re-activated the call.

"What the hell is going on here, sir?" O'Neill demanded.

"I'm getting you a specialist consultant," Kinsey replied. "Rather, Sheppard is. I assume you want your cousin, Major?"

John knew how to answer that. "It's your call, sir. Harry has advantages over other Brits, but you could as easily bring an American in."

"I could," Kinsey acknowledged. "But the family connection would help with trust… Right, then - I'll make the appropriate calls. Expect to hear from your cousin soon."

"Sir, yes, sir," John replied, snapping to near-attention.

"You can brief O'Neill about the bigger picture," Kinsey said. "Jack - what Sheppard's going to tell you will be hard to believe without seeing it - but keep an open mind. I've seen what he's talking about, and you'll see it soon, too."

The call ended, and O'Neill turned to John.

"You've got ten seconds to tell me exactly what's going on," he said.

"It'll take longer than ten seconds," John drawled, but sobered when O'Neill glared at him. "But we can get started in ten seconds." Then he couldn't help grinning. "Tell me, sir - do you believe in magic?"


	2. Chapter 2

Just shy of twenty-four hours later, John's phone rang.

Every eye in the conference room - O'Neill, Weir, Daniel Jackson, Rodney McKay, and two other people whose names he'd forgotten already - turned to him.

A glance at the screen told him who was calling. He answered the phone with a simple, "Harry."

"John." His cousin's voice came through the line, tinged equally with amusement and annoyance. "What the hell am I doing in Auckland, New Zealand, holding a portkey to Antarctica?"

"Wasting time?" John suggested, only to be answered by Harry's snort. "You walked into that one."

"I did," Harry admitted. "The Kiwi Minister for Magic didn't tell me exactly where I'm going - said it's classified."

"Very classified," John agreed. "Give me ten minutes, and I'll meet you."

"Ten minutes," Harry confirmed, and ended the call.

John slipped his phone into his pocket and looked at O'Neill. "Sir - my cousin will be here shortly, if you'd like to join me?"

Unsurprisingly, O'Neill glared at him. Equally unsurprisingly, yesterday's explanation of magic hadn't gone over well and, as a result, O'Neill was completely suspicious of John and everything to do with him.

"Fine," O'Neill grumbled after a minute, and rose from his seat at the conference table. He raked a glance over the others still at the table. "As you were," he said, "and make a decision before I get back, will you? The argument's giving me a headache."

About five minutes later, John emerged into the actinic sunlight of an Antarctic afternoon, slipping his sunglasses into place to protect against snowblindness as he did. Beside him, O'Neill did the same.

With the few minutes remaining before Harry's arrival, John turned to scan the entrance to the base. He hadn't had the chance when he and O'Neill arrived the day before, and now he needed to ascertain the security level outside the base proper to determine what Harry could and couldn't do to convince O'Neill of their claims.

"So how's your cousin the wizard arriving, then?" O'Neill asked. "Flying carpet?"

"Those are illegal in Britain," John replied absently. "Something to do with old import/export laws, I think."

"Of course," O'Neill drawled. "Pesky laws. So how _will_ he be arriving?"

"Well," John said, allowing himself to grin only because O'Neill couldn't see it at the moment, "he does love to fly on his broomstick, but he'll be arriving by portkey. Like a transporter from _Star Trek_ , only it's a one-time use and keyed to an object."

Before O'Neill could comment on that, Harry appeared in front of them with a _crack_ akin to a distant thunderbolt. He looked good, generally speaking - at least as far as John could tell due to the parka he wore and the dark sunglasses covering his eyes.

Harry pocketed what looked like a business card and grinned at John.

"You pick the damnedest places for a family reunion," Harry said.

Then John was taking the three steps that brought him close enough to grab Harry in a hug. "Long time no see."

"Your fault, this time," Harry responded, clapping John on the back. "Stationed in bloody Afghanistan…."

"It's not like I get to choose my postings," John protested as he stepped back from the embrace. "Harry, this is General Jonathan O'Neill -"

"Two Ls," O'Neill put in.

"He's head of the project I asked for your help on," John continued without missing a beat. "Sir, my cousin, Harry Potter. He's indirectly responsible for my saving your life yesterday."

"I am?" Harry asked at the same time O'Neill said, "He is?"

"Then thank you indirectly, I guess," O'Neill added before turning to John. "How can he be indirectly responsible for saving my life?"

John grinned so widely his cheeks ached. "Thanks to him, I did a flawless Wronski Feint."

"A what?" O'Neill asked, but Harry turned to him suspiciously.

"Flawless?" Harry repeated. "What were you flying?"

"A helicopter," John replied, knowing that the general term would, in this instance, suffice.

"Seriously?" Harry's eyebrows flew up above his sunglasses. "Is that even within the design specs?"

"Barely," John said. "But that was enough."

"You'll have to show me the memory sometime," Harry said. Then, "It's safe to talk?"

John nodded. "I got permission from Vice President Kinsey to read him in. He doesn't believe me, though."

Harry quirked a grin at O'Neill. "You don't believe in magic, sir? Even after I basically teleported in?"

"There are alien civilizations with transporter technology," O'Neill said. "You'll have to do better than that."

"Aliens?" Harry glanced at John. "He's serious?"

"Very," John said. "Aliens exist. Some friendly, some not, and some just want to be left the hell alone. At least, that's what I've gotten from my briefing since I arrived and was read in yesterday."

"Close enough," O'Neill put in. "But you were talking about magic?"

"I was," Harry agreed, but fell silent after that. Then he glanced at John again, before focusing on O'Neill. "How about I show you that Wronski Feint John mentioned?"

"I have no idea what that even is," O'Neill said.

Harry looked at John. "Okay to do it here?"

"Side of the building would be better." John jerked his head to the right. "Fewer cameras over there."

"Then if we can move over there?" Harry said.

Once they were out of sight of most of the security cameras, Harry pulled something from his pocket and it enlarged, resolving into a broom.

Though, John reflected, calling that a broom was like calling an Abrams tank an ATV. Where typical brooms had angled bristles - the better to reach dust in corners - the broom Harry held looked … well … _mean_ and aggressive.

Then Harry threw a leg over it and took off. John just waited for the avalanche of questions he was sure would come from his superior officer.

He readily admitted to some surprise when O'Neill just said, "Well, that's something. So who the hell is Wronski, and what did he feint?"

"Josef Wronski," John answered easily, Harry's enthusiasm for all things Quidditch having eagerly and thoroughly overwhelmed John's general indifference. "The first player ever to pull the move off successfully."

"Player of _what_?" O'Neill asked.

"Quidditch," John said. "Think if soccer and cricket had a bastard child that was born to fly."

"That makes no sense at all, Sheppard," O'Neill said.

"It won't until you see it," John agreed - which he had done a couple of years before, thanks to Harry getting tickets to the Quidditch World Cup. "Part of the object of Quidditch is for one player, called the Seeker, to catch a flying ball called the Golden Snitch."

O'Neill snorted.

"Yeah, I laughed, too," John said. "Wronski was a Seeker, and one game, he made everyone believe he'd seen the Snitch and was chasing after it. The opposing team's Seeker followed him. You'll be able to imagine how that turned out after you watch Harry."

John didn't hear whatever O'Neill might have said in reply, because he was scanning the sky for any speck that might be out of place.

A slight speck of darkness against the sky had him grabbing O'Neill's shoulder and pointing. "There, sir - that's Harry."

The speck he'd seen resolved itself into a dot that hurtled toward them at speeds John didn't want to measure. Then the dot resolved into Harry, and even from this distance John could make out the grin.

"Jesus - is he suicidal or something?" O'Neill asked.

"No, sir," John replied without taking his eyes from Harry. "Just confident."

"You sure?" O'Neill asked, and John could hear the strain to keep his tone conversational. "'Cause he should be pulling up about now."

"Not yet," John said. "Wait for it…"

Unwittingly, a countdown started in his head. _Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. I'd be pulling up now. Three. Two._

And then Harry had turned his broom at an improbable angle so that he skimmed along the ground, just about chest-high to John, before pulling his broom upward and flying away into the sky.

"Well." O'Neill cleared his throat. "That was … something. Guessing whoever was following this Wronski fellow didn't pull up?"

"Got it in one, sir. Very few people can pull off a Wronski Feint," John said. "Josef Wronski, of course. Viktor Krum, Seeker for the Bulgarian National Quidditch Team. And Harry - who did his first one while he was a third-year student."

"He did that in _third grade?_ " O'Neill sounded stunned. "When he was _eight?_ "

"No, sorry." John turned to him. "In his third year at school. He was thirteen."

"And too ignorant to know what I'd done." Harry said as he pulled up beside them and dismounted. "I saw Krum do it the next year at the Quidditch World Cup and was eager to try it myself. Then my friend Ron told me I already had."

Harry shrank his broom and returned it to his pocket.

"I can't imagine," O'Neill said, "how your parents must've reacted."

John winced as Harry's expression closed off. "My parents were killed when I was a baby," Harry said. "But I'm told my father played Chaser at school, so I hope they'd appreciate it."

O'Neill's expression lightened, just a little. "Sorry for your loss."

"My fault," John put in. "I didn't tell him everything."

Harry grinned, but to John it looked a little forced. "No reason for you to. Now - what the bloody hell am I doing in Antarctica?"

"Besides freezing?" O'Neill quipped.

"I can help with that, at least." Harry snapped out his wand and aimed it at O'Neill, twirling it in slow circles. " _Focillo_."

He repeated the spell for John, and warmth spread through John's body.

"Thanks," John said. O'Neill seemed too surprised by his sudden warmth to speak, so John prodded gently, "Sir?"

O'Neill shook himself out of whatever quasi-stupor he'd been in. "Right. This way - we'll have to talk in the SCIF."


	3. Chapter 3

Harry tried not to gawk as he followed John and the general into the base, where he found a lot of activity that might look somewhat chaotic but was clearly well coordinated.

He was familiar enough with computers and non-magical technology, but he only recognized about a quarter of what they had here. He had to set his curiosity aside as O'Neill stepped into a room.

Harry followed John inside, and the general closed the door and gestured for them to have a seat at the small conference table inside. An apparently blank sheet of paper lay on the desk with a pen beside it.

"Before we get into complicated explanations," O'Neill said, "let's start with a test."

He turned the paper over, and Harry saw that it was half-full of writing of some kind. O'Neill passed Harry the paper and pen.

"Can you translate that?"

Harry took the paper and blinked when he recognized Ancient Runes - not just Norse but others combined into one unique alphabet. He looked up at O'Neill. "Where'd you get this?"

"That's part of the complicated explanations," O'Neill said. "Can you translate it?"

Harry glanced at John, and his cousin made a _go ahead_ gesture, saying, "It's why you're here. I saw that and thought it looked like some of your homework."

Harry shook his head and grumbled. "You'd think I'd be done with homework by now."

Still, he picked up the pen and started writing. Even after a decade of not studying the runes, or even using them more than a few times a year, the translation came quickly, until he got to the last word.

Without thinking, Harry opened the dimensional store he kept on a chain around his neck and pulled out a runic dictionary. He flipped through a couple of pages until he found the entry he needed, read it, and put the book back in its place.

The last word written, he looked up to see O'Neill staring at him with his mouth actually hanging open.

"What?" Harry asked.

When O'Neill didn't answer, he looked to John for an answer, only to find his cousin staring straight ahead, his lips firmly set in a straight line. Harry knew that look - it meant John was doing everything he possibly could not to laugh - and there'd be no help from that quarter.

He looked back to O'Neill. "Sorry, General - I didn't realize it was a closed-book test."

"I –" John coughed, then began again. "I think it's more that you have a book at all. Even besides you pulling it out of a Bag of Holding, this project is classified."

"Oh." Harry said, then fell silent as O'Neill seemed to have recovered from his surprise and was now studying Harry's translation.

"Sheppard, get Daniel Jackson in here," O'Neill said. "Ask him to bring his laptop."

"Yes, sir. Back in a minute, Harry."

Harry nodded acknowledgment of the reassurance, but he wasn't worried. They'd brought him here for a reason, and it wasn't likely that reason had changed in the last half-hour.

O'Neill finally looked back at Harry. "It took our team a week to translate this, and you did it in ten minutes or less."

"Professor Babbling could've done it faster," Harry said. "I'm out of practice."

"Out of practice," O'Neill repeated, shaking his head. "Practice with what?"

"Runes in general," Harry said. "They're very useful in ritual magic, but not a lot of people practice that anymore."

"Why?" O'Neill asked, and Harry could tell the man was accepting their conversation even as he struggled to comprehend deeper meanings.

"Too complicated?" Harry shrugged. "I mean, why bother growing your grain, grinding it, and so on, when you can buy bread?"

"Did you practice it?"

"Some – mostly for warding my house," Harry said, then remembered the man before him was a muggle. He added for clarification, "Wards – like a security system."

"Right." O'Neill still looked dubious, but anything he might have said in response was cut off by the opening of the door.

Harry looked over his shoulder to see John and another man. The newcomer had dark hair and wore glasses that reminded Harry of the ones he'd worn when he was younger, before he'd gotten his vision permanently corrected.

"What's going on, Jack?" the newcomer – Daniel Jackson, Harry reminded himself – asked, flicking a curious glance at Harry before focusing on O'Neill again.

"Take a look at this." O'Neill held out the paper Harry had translated.

Jackson set his laptop down and studied the paper thoughtfully for a long moment before looking back at O'Neill. "Who did this?"

O'Neill gestured at Harry, and Harry offered his hand, reflecting that it was nice to actually have to introduce himself.

"Harry Potter."

Jackson took his hand. "Daniel Jackson. You transferred from Area 51? Or the Mountain?"

Harry blinked, having no idea what those words meant in this context. Before he could try to answer, O'Neill spoke.

"Not important right now, Daniel. Show the man what you're currently working on."

Jackson frowned at the general, but gamely opened up his laptop. He tapped a few keys, then slid the machine over to Harry.

The screen displayed another section of text written in the same odd style of runes as what he'd translated earlier and, beneath it, someone's – Jackson's? – attempt at a translation. It was clearly a work in progress … and equally clearly ….

"That's not right," Harry muttered absently and started typing his own translation.

"What -?" Jackson began, then fell silent and moved so that he could see what Harry was typing. Harry ignored his presence and kept working. "That's – we've been trying to translate that for months … and now you just come in here and tell us it's all wrong?"

"How does it feel to be on the receiving end of that, Daniel?" O'Neill sounded amused.

"Humbling," Jackson answered. "It helps that he wasn't a jerk about it like I was. How do you know Ancient?"

The last question seemed to be directed to Harry, so he looked up from what he was doing – the translation was relatively easy, but he wasn't _that_ good a typist – to answer.

"Four years of classes."

"Classes?" Jackson's voice had gone up half an octave. "What do you mean, _classes_?"

Harry looked between John and O'Neill. "What am I allowed to say, here?"

"Sir?" John asked. "That wasn't part of my briefing."

O'Neill nodded an acknowledgment to John before focusing on Harry. "Once we explained in general terms what we're facing here, your people agreed that our research staff can be brought fully into the loop – mostly because there's no cover story we can come up with that will explain how you know an alien language."

"Alien?" Harry repeated, pondering at the implications of that statement for a moment before shoving them to the back of his mind when O'Neill continued.

"Yep. Long story short, they came here from another galaxy, stayed a while, and then left. This base was one of their outposts, and what you're translating is part of the information they left behind."

Harry decided that wasn't any more far-fetched than he'd once considered the existence of magic to be, so he nodded to indicate he'd understood.

"So if there's no cover story," Jackson said, "what is the real explanation?"

"Short version?" Harry asked. Jackson nodded, and Harry continued, "I'm a wizard, and what you call an alien language, I call Ancient Runes. Studied them for four years in school."

"Wizard school," John put in. "He had homework assigned over the summers, and I teased him mercilessly about it. But I also got a good look at it, and when I saw your whiteboard, Dr. Jackson, I recognized them, told the general about it, and here we are."

Jackson turned to O'Neill. "You believe this? Magic?"

"Saw it demonstrated when Potter arrived," O'Neill said before turning to Harry. "You have something equally impressive but requiring less space to demonstrate?"

Harry looked at John. "Do you mind?"

John heaved an exaggerated sigh. "Fine. Just don't embarrass me too much, okay?"

"Promise," Harry said seriously. "Stand up, will you?"

John did, and Harry snapped his wand into his hand. He transfigured John's uniform into Quidditch robes – complete with Harry's name and number on the back – and then as a finishing touch, turned John's hair a neon pink.

John looked down at himself and shrugged. "Could've been worse."

Harry bit back a grin and transfigured John's fingers into tentacles.

John sighed.

"Your turn to walk into something." Harry let the grin out as he ended all of his spells.

John sat back down giving Harry a glare that promised retribution. Harry pointedly ignored it, returning his full attention to O'Neill.

"Do you think Potter can help you, Daniel?" O'Neill asked.

"Oh, hell yes!" Jackson exclaimed, reddening just a bit when the general laughed.

"He's got reference books, too," O'Neill pointed out helpfully, and Harry couldn't help laughing at Jackson's expression.

"That," he said to John as he pulled books from his dimensional store and stacked them on the table, "is exactly how Hermione looks when she gets a new book."

O'Neill stared at the stack. "Just how many of those do you have?"

"Books?" Harry asked. "Or books on runes? Books on runes -" he paused to do a mental tally. "Twenty or so. Books in general? Several hundred."

"These look new," Jackson observed.

"Preservation charms help with that," Harry said. "My school textbooks are in there, along with some older books, and some that are downright ancient."

"Hence, ancient runes," John said dryly.

"Ha bloody ha," Harry said without heat.

"Schoolbooks should still be in print, right?" Jackson said. "Can we order our own copies? And the older ones - how much do they cost?"

"You haven't even opened them yet," O'Neill complained. "Take a look at them, tell me what's critical and what's just supplementary, and we'll see about getting your own set. Meantime, find Potter a place to work -" he broke off and focused on Harry. "Sorry - the star on the shoulder usually means I get to be in charge, but you're not one of mine."

"As it happens," Harry said, "I was in Shack's office when the call came in."

"Shack?" O'Neill looked puzzled.

"Kingsley Shacklebolt, Minister for Magic," Harry replied. "His American counterpart called to ask for my help."

"What were you doing with the Minister?" John asked, his tone neutral but his expression suspicious.

"Handing in my resignation." Harry sat back and waited, but the explosion never came.

All John said was, "You'll tell me the whole story later."

Harry looked up at O'Neill. "Shack didn't accept my resignation yet. He seconded me to your unit for as long as you need me - or six months, whichever comes first."

O'Neill gave him a puzzled frown. "You don't look like a politician."

"Oh, I'm really not," Harry said cheerfully. "Unless you count being able to tell someone to bugger off in six different languages political."

"So who are you that you're on a nickname basis with your Minister for Magic?"

"I'm the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," Harry said, "but more importantly, we had each other's backs in the war, and during the cleanup after. He's a … well, not quite a friend, but close."

"War?" O'Neill repeated, then shook his head. "Not important at the moment. Daniel -" he broke off when he saw Jackson buried in the book Harry had used for Ancient Runes in third year. "Doctor Jackson."

O'Neill's harder tone made Jackson jerk his head up. "What? Oh, Jack - what's going on?"

"Make Potter useful while you're going through those books," O'Neill said. "Take him down to your group and get him started."

"Right." Jackson started gathering his laptop and some of the books into his arms.

"Let me help with that." Harry cast a Featherlight Charm on the books, and Jackson blinked, clearly surprised by the reduction in weight. "And I've got the rest. Lead on, Dr. Jackson."

"Daniel, please."

Harry reciprocated the offer and followed the other man from the room.


	4. Chapter 4

John watched the door close behind Harry and Jackson, then returned his attention to the general, who was still studying the first translation Harry had done. It was only a minute or two before O'Neill looked up - and blinked when his gaze focused on John.

"What're you still doing here?"

"Considering I don't actually know where I'm supposed to be - either on station or on duty, since we left the meeting to get Harry," John said dryly, "I'm waiting for orders. More seriously, sir - I figure you have questions. I can answer at least some of them."

The first question came immediately, and it wasn't anything John had expected. "How is it he's magical and you're not?"

"Genetic lottery," John replied. "My mom's parents were magical, but she was born without magic. Or, without _much_ magic. When it was clear she wouldn't be able to function in magical society, they placed her in the non-magical world. Eventually, she met my dad, who has no magic in the family tree that we're aware of. There was a chance mom's kids would have magic, but neither of us seem to."

"And Potter's parents were both magical, and they passed it to him."

"Right."

"Doesn't it bug you - that he can turn your hair pink and you can't retaliate?" O'Neill sounded genuinely curious.

"Oh, I can retaliate - just not with active magic," he added as O'Neill started to protest. "But the first time he did that to me, I put bright blue dye in his shampoo. The result wasn't as impressive as the Color-Changing Charm, but it got my point across."

O'Neill chuckled. "I can see how it would. … active magic?"

"Things you need a wand for," John clarified. "Most people can do passive magic, though - things like making potions, if you can get the right ingredients."

"Huh." O'Neill shook his head briefly, and John thought the general was coming close to his limit of impossible things to believe before breakfast. "He mentioned going to war?"

John rubbed both hands over his face. "Yeah. Before Harry was born, a dark wizard calling himself Lord Voldemort, even though he wasn’t a lord of anything, tried to take over magical Britain. He learned that a child with the power to defeat him had been prophesized. Harry was one of the children who fit the parameters of the prophecy, and when Harry was fifteen months old, Voldemort attacked his parents' house."

John fell silent after that, and after long moments, O'Neill said, "He said his parents didn't make it?"

"No. But Harry survived, somehow, and Voldemort was … gone. Just gone." John shrugged. "Nobody knows what really happened that night - Harry was much too young to remember, and everyone else involved was dead or otherwise unavailable for comment."

O'Neill snorted at that last, and John offered him a weary grin. O'Neill smiled grimly. "Sometimes, gallows humor is the only humor you've got."

"Voldemort returned when Harry was fourteen," John continued. "Not all of his followers were captured or killed, and one of them used Harry's blood in a ritual to bring Voldemort back."

"That - should be illegal."

"It was - but when has that ever stopped the bad guys?"

"Point. What happened then? I mean, surely the government wouldn't want a repeat of what happened before. Would they?"

"No, they didn't," John agreed. "But the government of magical Britain at the time was corrupt as hell and refused to acknowledge there was a problem - until that problem became a civil war."

"Christ," O'Neill muttered. "How old was Potter when it happened?"

"Seventeen. My cousin went to war at seventeen - we don't even let people enlist until they're eighteen." John knew he was rambling a bit, but the sheer stupid horror of what his cousin had been through as a child made him a little homicidal.

"Is he why you joined the Air Force?"

John laughed. "Not in the way you're thinking. He took me up on his broom one summer, and I fell in love with flying."

That seemed to shock O'Neill more than anything else. "You went flying on his broom?"

"You can't expect me to believe you wouldn't go flying on an actual broom at thirteen? Fifteen? Even thirty-five?"

"I probably would," O'Neill admitted with a sigh. "How do we ever make it to adulthood?"

"It's a mystery, sir."

The silence that fell was companionable - at least, as companionable as it could be when a one-star general was involved - and John was in no hurry to break it. O'Neill's reactions thus far to everything magical had convinced John that he was an officer to be respected, one who deserved the loyalty those under him gave him. It had been far too long since John had had one of those officers, and he didn't want to piss this one off unnecessarily.

"You asked about your station and duty," O'Neill said abruptly.

"Yes, sir." John straightened in his chair.

"I want you working here - with the Stargate Program," O'Neill said. "More because you make the chair light up like a Christmas tree than because of your cousin. I'll make sure you're rotated out to various bases in the Pacific and CONUS so you can keep your flying hours current, but this will be your primary duty station."

It was more than John had hoped for since Afghanistan, and he could only offer a sincere, "Thank you, sir."

"This isn't Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket," O'Neill said. "While you're here, you'll most likely be used to activate and interact with Ancient technology and help the geeks with whatever they need in that regard."

"I understand, sir."

O'Neill's eyes widened suddenly. "Genetics - you and Potter share genetics."

"Uh - twenty-five percent, I think?" John offered.

"That may be enough."

:-:-:-:-:

It was easy enough to ignore the buzz of activity in the base in favor of memorizing the route from the room where he'd left John and the general, Harry thought as he followed Daniel to a workspace. It wasn't that different from his days as an Auror when he'd settle down to work in the bullpen at the Ministry of Magic.

The biggest difference was that here, there were a lot of different types of projects going on and Harry couldn't take a guess at more than half of them. Then again, he didn't have a need to know, as none of them seemed to be related to the runes they, apparently desperately, needed help with.

They were almost to a small alcove where a whiteboard covered in runes - many of them honestly nonsensical - just peeked out when Harry heard something he hadn't expected to hear in Antarctica of all places.

"Harry Potter?!"

Harry dropped the books he was carrying and whirled to face whatever threat it might be. His reason stopped him from summoning his wand in a room full of muggles, but only just.

The speaker turned out to be a man who appeared to be a few years older than Harry with dark hair and eyes that were blue and wide. He wore a fleece jacket like so many others did, and on the sleeve was the _bratach na h-Alba_ , as Professor McGonagall had once called it, the Banner of Scotland.

In this place, it was unlikely that the man meant to harm him, so Harry offered, "Have we met?"

"Not officially, no," the man said. "But we passed in the halls at H- at school."

Harry sorted through his memories and quirked an eyebrow at the other man. "You were in Ra- Rowena's study group?"

Beckett's face lit with a smile. "Aye, I was."

Daniel cleared his throat. "You two know each other?"

"I wouldna say that," Beckett said. "More that everybody knows Harry. He was -" Beckett broke off as Harry's glare finally registered. "Quite popular," he said finally. "Sports, you know."

"Uh - sure," Daniel said. "But you can catch up later."

"Of course, Dr. Jackson," Beckett said. "Sorry to delay you."

"No problem," Daniel said, but his steps were quicker than they had been, and Harry lengthened his stride to keep up.

Daniel brought them to an alcove that was somewhat secluded from the rest of the base - likely, Harry thought, the most secluded they'd find anywhere on this base.

Daniel dropped the books he carried onto a table and whirled on Harry before demanding in a quiet voice, "Beckett's a wizard, too?"

"Seems like," Harry replied, equally quietly. He put his own books down and cancelled the Featherlight Charms on them. "A couple of years above me."

"Then he's known about the - the _runes_ all this time and hasn't said anything?"

Harry thought about that for a moment. "What does he do here?"

Daniel blinked. "What?"

"What does he _do_? What's his job?"

"Oh. He's a doctor."

"Then he wouldn't necessarily have recognized them for what they are," Harry said. "In our world, healers need high marks in Potions, Herbology, Transfiguration, Charms, and Defense against the Dark Arts. He probably never studied Ancient Runes."

"But you did," Daniel said. "What did you want to be?"

"I just wanted to survive," Harry replied. "But my best friend was mad for … well, for _everything_ , really. If it could be learned, Hermione wanted to learn it. Her enthusiasm for Ancient Runes and Arithmancy made me drop Divination and Care of Magical Creatures."

"But he knew you …" Daniel broke off, obviously unsure how to continue.

"Everybody in magical Britain knows who I am," Harry said. "It's a long story. Maybe I'll tell you someday."

"I'll look forward to it." Daniel took a breath. "Okay - are you good to start proofing the translation I was working on?"

"I can do that."

"Great," Daniel said. "Then I'll get started looking through these books so we can figure out which ones to order."

He sat down and dragged a book in front of him, then stopped and looked up at Harry. "Wait - if you're supposed to be secret, how are we going to hide what the books are? We don't exactly have a lot of locked doors here."

Harry grinned. "I'll put a Notice-Me-Not Charm on them. Only someone who knows what they are will see them."

:-:-:-:-:

Several hours later, John wandered back to where Harry and Jackson sat. Jackson was poring over the books Harry had brought, and Harry was typing away at what must be Jackson's laptop.

"Ready for lunch?" he asked, and Harry looked up at him.

"Lunch? Already?" he asked.

"It's almost one," John replied, smirking. "Looks like you got lost in it."

Harry chuckled. "You could say that." He saved his work and closed the laptop. "Coming, Daniel?"

Jackson didn't respond.

"Doctor Jackson?" John offered - again with no response. He looked up at Harry, who shrugged.

"Not our job to baby-sit him," Harry said finally.

"It might be my job," John said. "Or part of it - I'm not sure. C'mon, the mess is this way."

This late in the lunch hour, the mess was mostly empty. John headed for the snack bar line and loaded his plate with a cheeseburger, fries, and a salad. Harry followed suit, though skipping the fries, and the two of them made their way to a table against the far wall.

"Should I apologize for dragging you into this?" John asked once they were seated. "You said you were handing in your resignation, and this is making you stay longer than you wanted."

Harry took a bite of his burger, chewed and swallowed before answering.

"How is that even a question, John? I just found out aliens exist - it's like finding out magic exists, only without a self-styled dark lord coming after me."

"Still…" John waved a fry at Harry. "You were about to do something you've wanted to do for a couple of years, and I drag you down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass."

"John." Harry offered him a gentle smile. "I haven't done anything I didn't want to do since I left Hogwarts."

"Should you be saying that word?"

"Privacy charm when we sat down. Truth is, I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing next, just that I'm done being an Auror. Too much of the worst of people, you know?"

"Yeah." John's experiences in the Air Force weren't quite the same, but he figured they were close enough that he could relate.

Before Harry could say anything else, a voice called out.

"You! Sheppard the second! Come with me."

Harry looked from the man who'd joined them to John. "Who's this guy and why does he want me to go with him?"

"Rodney McKay, chief scientist," John said. "I've no idea as to the second question."

"It should be obvious," McKay said. "You, Sheppard, made the chair practically sing. Time to see if the gene runs in your family."

"You realize we're first cousins once removed, right? Not exactly a ton of common genetic material," John pointed out.

"Still enough to check," McKay declared, and reached for Harry's arm.

Harry turned a baleful gaze on him. "Is there anything remotely resembling an emergency going on that requires the check be conducted immediately? Where _emergency_ involves fire, flood, blood, or similar conditions?"

McKay actually looked taken aback. John wished he could take a picture for posterity. "Well - no."

"Then I'm going to finish my lunch, thanks," Harry said and looked back at John. "You know where the … chair? … is?"

"Yes. I'll get him there after we eat, McKay," John added. "Shouldn't be more than fifteen minutes."

McKay scowled. "If it's more than twenty, I'm coming to get him."

"Charming," Harry murmured as McKay stalked off.

"Four degrees, two of them doctorates," John replied. "Smarter than any other three or four people combined, but with the social graces of …" John trailed off, pondering an apt comparison

"A feral hippogriff?" Harry suggested.

"Maybe a wolverine," John offered with a shrug. "And you still haven't introduced me to a hippogriff. I'm starting to feel insulted."

"When we're done here, I'll see if I can find Buckbeak," Harry said. "He likes me, so he probably won't attack you."

"That's reassuring."

Ten minutes later, John led Harry toward the chair that had started all of this.

"Five minutes early, McKay," he said. "Even you can't complain about that."

McKay looked up with a scowl, but John thought it was more because McKay was expected to scowl than that he was actually irritated.

"Fine," McKay said. "Have a seat, not-Sheppard."

"Potter," Harry didn't make a move toward the chair. "Seriously. I'll answer to Potter, or Harry, or Scarhead if you must. Nothing else."

John watched, amused, as Harry met McKay's death glare with a calm one of his own. Finally, McKay huffed.

"Fine. In the chair, Potter."

Harry exchanged a smirk with John, then sat in the chair.

As it had for John, the chair lit up, and, when McKay prompted Harry, a holographic display of the galaxy appeared before them.

McKay stared at it for a moment, then looked from John to Harry. "All right - how many more of you are there, and what will it take to get them to join us?"

Harry was out of the chair and striding away almost before John processed McKay's question.

" _Rude_ ," John snapped. "More than usual for you, McKay."

"What?" McKay seemed honestly bewildered. "It's a legitimate question."

"Harry's the last of his family," John replied. "His parents were murdered when he was fifteen months old."

McKay blinked. "Oh." He swallowed hard, then took a breath. "I still say it was a legitimate question, but I could have phrased it better."

"I have one brother. Pretty sure he's taken over the family business, so good luck recruiting him," John said. "And for the record, I'm not the one you need to apologize to."

He whirled and stalked after his cousin, leaving Rodney McKay staring after him.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry did what he always did when he needed to recover himself: he took to the sky on his broom, releasing a practice Snitch to chase lazily around the sky.

Intellectually, he knew McKay hadn't meant to be disrespectful, much less rude, but over the years, he'd gotten used to people not asking about his family because everybody already _knew_ he was the last of his line. That knowledge didn't make the surprise of the question any less painful, though, and he'd had to get away before he'd cursed McKay silly.

Or maybe hit him with a dozen Tickling Charms.

Still, beneath the hurt from the question itself, the thought that McKay _didn't_ know was actually somewhat refreshing.

If he were honest with himself - and Harry had long tried to be - he'd admit that just being with his cousin was refreshing. He hadn't spent any extended time in the non-magical world since finishing uni, after all - maybe the next part of his life could involve more time in it.

Until he'd gotten the word from Shack, he'd thought to accept Minerva McGonagall's standing invitation to teach DADA and coach Quidditch at Hogwarts. But now, visibly and undeniably reminded of the wonders of the non-magical world, Harry had started to question that decision.

It wasn't like much remained for him in the magical world - just a bunch of celebrity he'd never wanted, and one or two friends worth the name. Whatever romance he might have had with Ginny Weasley had faltered during the war and never recovered. Hermione had left the magical world behind after she took home ten NEWTs with three of the highest scores ever recorded - and even that hadn't been enough to overcome the pure-blood bigotry that had survived the war. Ron - well.

Where Harry loathed his celebrity, Ron reveled in it, and they'd grown apart after the war. Still friends, of course, just … not close any longer.

Surprisingly, the only two Harry still kept in regular contact with were Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom - though since Neville had married and started a family with Hannah Abbott, his time for just hanging out with Harry had dwindled, as it should. Family came first - if anyone knew that, Harry did.

Luna … Harry smiled at the thought, even as he caught sight of the Snitch and dove after it.

Luna was her usual eccentric self, and Harry wouldn't have her any other way. She'd surprised everyone by earning seven NEWTs, and then gone on to become a magizoologist, though she was still searching for a Crumple-Horned Snorcack. 

Harry stretched out, flattening his body along his broom as he dove toward the Snitch. If it had been competition-grade, he might not have caught it, but it was spelled only for practice, and his fingers closed around it without crushing its wings.

He straightened on his broom, grinning in a way he hadn't in … longer than he could remember. The sound of clapping brought him out of his reverie and he looked down to see his cousin standing calf-deep in snow, well away from the base proper.

Harry landed a few meters from John, shrinking his broom and stowing it and the Snitch with a thought, before crunching across the snow to join his cousin.

"I've never envied magic, generally," John observed. "But I _really_ wish I could try that."

Harry laughed. "I'll take you up again sometime, let you steer for once."

"You'd better," John said. Then, "You okay?"

"Yeah," Harry said. "I mean - he couldn't have known."

"He knows now. Don't be surprised if he offers you an awkward but sincere apology."

"I'll accept it with no hard feelings," Harry assured him. "What's so special about the chair, anyway?"

"Spare a Warming Charm while we talk?" John asked with a grin. Harry obliged him, and he shoved his hands in his pockets as he started to walk. Harry fell into step with him as he circled the base.

"The outpost was built by a race we call the Ancients," John said. "Their technology requires someone to have a specific gene to use it. The gene's called - wait for it - the Ancient Technology Activation gene. ATA for short."

Harry laughed.

"I sat in the chair, and it lit up for me like it did for you - which is unusual as hell around here."

"Really? You'd think they'd have a lot of people with the gene around."

"Oh, they do," John said. "But most of them don't have a strong expression of it. You and I do."

"Because we share some genetic heritage," Harry guessed.

"That's their working hypothesis."

They turned a corner and Harry looked over at John. "You have a different one?"

"I wonder if the ATA gene is related to whatever it is that makes people magical."

"Huh." Harry hadn't thought of that - granted, he'd been in a spot of temper - but it made sense.

"No way to test that, though," John was saying. "Without another witch or wizard, that is."

Harry debated with himself - outing someone as a wizard would not normally go over well at all, but this was John, the cousin who'd accepted him completely and, not coincidentally, knew almost as much about the British magical world as Harry himself, and who was reasonably familiar with the people of the Stargate project. In the end, it really wasn't much of a debate.

"Carson Beckett," he said.

"Scottish medic," John said. "What about him?"

"He's a wizard, too - went to Hogwarts, but graduated a couple of years before me," Harry explained. "We can ask him to sit in the chair."

"He already has."

John let that statement linger to the point that Harry finally prompted him. "And?"

"Nearly shot me out of the sky when he accidentally activated an Ancient drone."

"Your Wronski Feint."

"Yep."

For long moments, the only sound was snow giving way under their boots as they walked.

"Sample size of three isn't statistically significant," John said finally. "D'you have any friends you could invite down here?"

"Not sure O'Neill would appreciate a magical invasion," Harry replied automatically, considering the question. "Hermione would be my first choice - she'd fit right in with Daniel Jackson and his crew."

"But she left the magical world," John said. "I remember you telling me that."

"She did, but she's still the smartest person I know and this? This would excite the hell out of her." Harry blew out a white breath. "I don't really get on with any of the Weasleys anymore. Neville's married with kids and won't leave his wife without good reason. … Luna might, depending on where she is … I'll think about it and let you know, okay?"

:-:-:-:-:

The next morning, John sought out Carson Beckett, finding him inventorying supplies in the area that had been set up as a sickbay/triage unit.

"Figured you'd have grunts do that," John said.

Beckett started and only relaxed a little when he recognized John.

"I do," Beckett said. "For routine supplies, anyway. This is different."

John didn't really expect him to elaborate, even if he asked, so he simply said, "Got a minute, Doc? A private minute?"

Beckett looked surprised, briefly, but recovered almost immediately. "Certainly, Major. My office?"

John followed him to the room that had been set up as his office, idly wondering what the Ancients who'd lived here so long ago had used it for. The door closed behind them, and Beckett took a seat at his desk.

"What can I do for you, Major?"

John settled in across from him and decided to take the bull by the horns - figuratively speaking. "Harry can cast a privacy charm. Can you?"

If Beckett had looked surprised before, now he looked absolutely gobsmacked. "I beg your pardon?"

"I know where Harry went to school," John said carefully. "And I know you went to the same one. So - can you cast a privacy charm?"

Beckett appeared to deliberate for a moment, then - so quickly John would've missed it if he hadn't been looking for it - a wand slipped into his hand and he cast a spell silently before returning the wand to its place.

"Mind telling me how you know about that?" Beckett asked, and his tone took on a dangerous edge.

John stared at him for a moment, reviewing his memories. "Oh - you probably haven't heard. Harry's my cousin."

Beckett scowled. "Harry Potter's got no family - no magical family, anyway. He was raised by Muggles."

John fought to keep his expression neutral as he offered a prompt. "There's one other class of non-magicals."

"Y'mean squibs?" Beckett sounded scandalized.

"Careful what you say next, Doc," John snapped. "My mother was one, and so am I."

"I meant no disrespect," Beckett said, and John decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was telling the truth. "But how's that relevant to Harry Potter?"

"My mom's maiden name was Potter," John said easily. "She had just enough magic that her parents - Charlus and Dorea Potter - weren't sure whether she'd get a Hogwarts letter. When she didn't, they placed her in the non-magical world. Eventually, she met and married my father."

"Blimey." Beckett sat still for long moments, apparently too surprised by what John had said to say more. Finally, he shook himself. "I dinnae understand why you're telling me this."

"Mostly to let you know that it's okay if we talk - no violation of the Statute of Secrecy or anything like that," John said.

Now Beckett looked suspicious. "To what end?"

"Maybe helping you out," John said. "Look, you, me, and Harry - we all can use the chair. Maybe other magicals can, too?"

The expression on Beckett's face made John wonder whether he should have brought that up, and he got out of there as quickly as he could.

:-:-:-:-:

Harry had always been more physical than intellectual - not that he was stupid, but his interests weren't always found in books - but he found reading the database the Ancients had left behind engrossing.

Or, it would've been, if not for Elizabeth Weir.

Harry appreciated her enthusiasm for learning as much as he appreciated Hermione's. The difference was that Hermione had never interrupted him when he was actually studying except to share critical information she'd just discovered.

Weir, however, constantly asked him for "updates," expressed her gratitude for his helping Dr. Jackson, reminded him that she was interested in anything he found about something called "ascension," and otherwise interrupted his research.

She did not, he noted, do the same to Daniel Jackson, who sat across the table from him. Then again, Daniel was reading books, not poking around in the Ancient database.

Finally, after the third gush about how grateful Weir was that he was assisting in this apparently all-important task in an hour, Harry slapped Daniel's laptop closed and sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.

Weir broke off, staring at him. Across from him, Daniel shifted just enough that Harry knew he was paying attention more to them than the book he was apparently still deeply engrossed in. Strange that after just a couple of days, Harry could read the other man's body language that well.

_Instincts honed in war and law enforcement, maybe?_

He put that thought aside for later consideration, focusing now on putting on his best irritated expression and waiting for someone to break the silence that had suddenly descended.

Weir broke first. "Is something wrong?"

"I spent the first eleven years of my life being abused and bullied," Harry said. "I'm not spending another day like that."

Weir's jaw dropped. "Surely you don't think I - I'm not abusing you!"

"You kind of are," Daniel said, glancing up from his reading. "At the very least you're badgering him every few minutes, interrupting his train of thought. I'm not sure where the line between badgering and bullying is, but clearly Harry feels you're right on it, if you haven't crossed it already."

"I - I'm sorry," Weir said. "I didn't realize … It never occurred to me."

"Apology accepted." Harry sat forward and opened the laptop again, skimming to find where he'd left off.

He felt more than heard or saw Weir leave a few seconds later.

Daniel cleared his throat softly and Harry looked up.

"For what it's worth," Daniel said, "I really don't think she realized what she was doing."

Harry shrugged. "I agree. But she still doesn't have the right to do it, and I'm not obliged to take it."

"True enough," Daniel said, and they each returned to what they were doing.


	6. Chapter 6

Four days later, Harry headed into the conference room for a high-level meeting - and stopped in his tracks when instead of Colonel Marshall Sumner, he saw John sitting beside O'Neill. He looked more closely and saw that the maple leaves on John's collar weren't gold anymore, but rather silver.

"Congratulations?" Harry offered as he sat down.

O'Neill chuckled briefly and John rolled his eyes. "Tell you later," John said, "but thanks."

"I hate meetings, Potter," O'Neill said. "So keep it brief, willya?"

"I found out why the Ancients left Pegasus," Harry said simply.

"That's good, isn't it?" O'Neill asked.

"Not really," Harry said. He looked at John when he said, "Dementors."

John blew out a breath and collapsed back in his seat.

O'Neill frowned at John, but said, "The name alone sounds creepy as hell. What are these Dementors?"

"Soul-sucking vampires," John answered. "Literally - soul-sucking vampires."

"Seriously?" O'Neill looked between them.

"Seriously," Harry said. "Magical Britain used them to guard Azkaban - a wizard prison - for decades before Voldemort co-opted them to his side during the war."

"Are they still around?" O'Neill asked.

"A few," Harry said, then frowned. "Probably more than a few, actually - they're damned hard to kill."

"How hard?" O'Neill asked, and Harry respected the military approach.

"There's just one spell that I know of - well, one light spell. There are a couple of dark spells, but a lot of wizards won't use those on general - though misguided - principle."

"Are we talking light and dark like the Force?" O'Neill asked.

"Kind of?" Harry said. "Dark magic isn't necessarily evil - it's just magic whose primary purpose is to cause harm, exert control over, or kill another."

"Which is stupid," John put in, "because a Cutting Curse or a Piercing Charm can kill just as easily - _more_ easily than a lot of the dark spells."

O'Neill tapped his fingertips on the conference table, his brows furrowed together in a frown of concentration. "These spells - can anyone cast them?"

"Potentially," Harry said. "The dark ones, at least - the light one, that takes some power."

"Can you cast it?" O'Neill asked.

"I learned it when I was thirteen."

"I'd like to see it," O'Neill said. "If you can cast it without hurting us."

"The Patronus Charm _can't_ hurt us," John said. Then he grinned. "But it's really cool."

It was one spell Harry had never mastered casting without his wand, so he drew it and pointed it at the far end of the conference room. " _Expecto Patronum_."

Prongs exploded from Harry's wand and took a few steps, looking for all the world like he was trying to scent where he was. Harry glanced at O'Neill and bit back a grin. The general was staring, slack-jawed, at the glowing stag.

After a moment, Prongs trotted toward John, who reached up to scratch his nose. "Long time no see, Prongs."

"This," Harry said, "is what a corporeal patronus looks like - though a patronus can be any animal, really. Hermione's is an otter, and Luna's is a hare - it's individual to the caster, and we don't get to pick."

"Can't imagine anyone would pick an otter," John observed wryly.

O'Neill's astonishment faded as Prongs did. "And these - these patroni can kill Dementors?"

"Patronuses," Harry said. "I know, it makes no sense, but there you have it. Corporeal patronuses can, sometimes - Prongs has for sure - but non-corporeal ones just provide protection from the Dementors' effects."

"The soul-sucking thing?"

"Just being around them can make you feel sad, depressed," Harry said. "They drain all your happy thoughts and feelings, and _then_ they suck out your soul."

"How considerate of them," O'Neill said wryly. Then he blew out a breath. "Okay. Daniel wants copies of every book you can find on - what'd you call them? Runes?"

"Ancient Runes," Harry said. "How many of each?"

"I'm thinking four - two for here, two for the Mountain," O'Neill said. "I'm pretty sure Danny will keep one set all to himself, and Carter will do the same at the Mountain."

"Do I have a budget?" Harry asked, although he suspected he'd buy whatever O'Neill wanted no matter his budgetary constraints. The money he got with his Order of Merlin had to be good for something, after all.

"Eh - if it gets past five figures, let me know."

Harry concealed a smile and strove to keep his tone neutral. "Time frame?"

"Sooner than later," O'Neill replied. "How long do you need?"

Harry thought about that. "A day to get to England - technically less, but let's err on the side of caution. A day to shop. A day to get back."

"And a day for the Harry Potter Factor," John put in - which made O'Neill frown again.

"Harry Potter Factor?"

John shrugged apparently casually, but his lips twitched with amusement. "Weird things happen around Harry. Always have."

Harry rolled his eyes at his cousin. "Melodramatic much? But, fine - four days."

"How long to recruit more of your kind? More wizards?" O'Neill asked, and Harry was relieved that John looked as surprised as he felt.

"Recruit?" Harry said. Then his tone turned hard. "For research purposes?"

"If a team goes to Atlantis, and there's a better than average chance of these demented things being there, I want more than one person who can destroy them," O'Neill said flatly.

Harry wasn't sure how to respond to the assumption that he'd go to Atlantis, so for the moment chose to ignore it in favor of practical considerations. "What other qualifications besides being able to cast a corporeal patronus?"

"Unmarried - or a married couple who can both cast the spell," O'Neill said.

"Able to function in the non-magical world," John added. "Maybe we can handle the initial screening through an Internet questionnaire?"

O'Neill quirked an eyebrow at him. "We have to specify that they be able to function in our world?"

"For magical Britain, absolutely," John said. "I met a couple of Harry's schoolmates over the years, and if they were born in the magical world, they invariably have no clue how to navigate outside it."

"Sadly true," Harry murmured. "It's getting better since the war, but still not great. Any other restrictions?"

"English-speaking," O'Neill said. "I don't care where they're from, but the program operates in English, so they have to understand it. Ideally, they have other skills that will help on a year-long expedition - Sheppard can fill you in on those while you're there."

"Sir?" John said.

"You're going with him," O'Neill clarified.

"I don't actually need help buying books," Harry said.

"Of course not - but you're now the most valuable member of this team, so you're going to have protection." O'Neill smirked. "I chose your cousin because he's already in the know, and everyone can use a little family time - especially if they don't have much family left."

There was a sadness in those last words that Harry chose not to pursue. Instead, he looked at John. "When do you want to leave?"

"Soon as we get the Internet questionnaire set up and the general tells me I'm cleared to carry a weapon in - where are we going?"

Harry thought quickly. "We'll apparate from here to Auckland, then get a portkey to England. For all its faults, Magical Britain does have a few outstanding bookstores. A stop back in the US to recruit there, too, and we're probably done."

"I'll have the paperwork done tomorrow," O'Neill said. "Potter - besides the books on runes, is there anything else you can think of that we might want?"

"Healing potions," Harry said promptly. "Most potions will work on non-magicals, but if we're taking magical people with us -" and apparently his subconscious had decided that he was now part of the Atlantis Expedition, without his knowledge or consent "- we'll want both kinds. Pepper-up potions - and supplies to make more of both. Chocolate - lots of chocolate in any form."

"Why chocolate?" O'Neill asked.

"It helps magical people recuperate after using a lot of magic," Harry said. It was a simplified explanation, but O'Neill appeared to accept it readily enough.

"Fine," he said. "I'll add ten pounds of chocolate per person to the supplies requisition - how many do you think you'll get?"

John hid a snort of laughter behind his coffee cup. Harry glared at him before meeting the general's gaze once again. "Hard to say - I expect a fair number of Muggle-borns will want in on it, and maybe a few half-bloods. But I'll have to confirm they can cast a patronus before I let them sign on. … How many are you sending, outside of witches and wizards?"

"Fifty," O'Neill said, and Harry took a sip of his tea while he considered that.

"Let's plan for five to ten magicals," he said finally. "I don't know that I'll get that many, but I wouldn't want to go with less than five."


	7. Chapter 7

Two days later, John paced Harry as they headed down Charing Cross Road in London. He'd asked why they didn't just apparate to their destination - Diagon Alley, he thought - but Harry had only smirked and told him he should have the full experience for his first visit.

"What do you think is the oldest pub in London?" Harry asked, apropos of nothing, "And how old do you think it is?"

"I'm guessing 1667 or so for the age," John said after a moment's thought. "After the Great Fire, of course."

"Of course," Harry said.

"As for the name - how would I know? Something suitably odd, though - the Dog and Duck, maybe. Or maybe Ye Olde Cheddar Cheese."

Harry chuckled. "There's actually a pub called Ye Olde _Cheshire_ Cheese dating from 1667, believe it or not. There's also the Hoop & Grapes, over in Aldgate that actually dates from 1593."

"Wait - it survived the Great Fire _and_ the Blitz?"

"Surprisingly so," Harry said. "And it hasn't been redeveloped or modernized, either. But no, the oldest pub in London is the Leaky Cauldron - only by a century or so, but still."

"Still," John agreed, turning the name over in his head. "Leaky Cauldron suggests it's magical?"

"Originally, it was for everyone - back before the Statute of Secrecy, that is." Harry paused outside what appeared to be a run-down shop of some kind. "Muggles can't see it anymore - not without help - but you should be able to, if you concentrate."

John turned to follow Harry's gaze, and after a moment, the storefront shimmered before his eyes before resolving into the entrance to the Leaky Cauldron.

"Neat party trick," John observed and followed Harry inside, pausing to let his eyes adjust to the relative dimness of the interior.

"Harry!" The feminine shout drew curious stares from the handful of patrons who'd stopped for a late breakfast or early lunch, and John saw several of them wave or nod to Harry before turning back to their meal.

"Hey, Hannah." Harry caught a blonde-haired woman in a hug. "How's the studying going?"

"Difficult," Hannah replied as she stepped back. "But worth it, if I can work with Neville."

"You two are great together," Harry said, then turned to include John. "John, this is Hannah Longbottom. We went to school together and fought together," he added in a lower tone. "Hannah, my cousin John Sheppard."

Hannah frowned at John. "Not the horrible one, I hope?"

"No, from my dad's side of the family," Harry said as John offered his hand. After a hesitation so brief he almost missed it, Hannah took his hand in a firm grip.

"You're staying for lunch, I hope?" Hannah said.

"Got business in the Alley," Harry replied. "But we'll stop for a drink on the way out."

Hannah huffed in mock exasperation. "I suppose that'll do." Then she smiled, turning her from fairly attractive to outright pretty. "Have fun shopping."

Harry made a face at her, then led the way through the pub and into a courtyard that hadn't yet been hit by the morning sun. John watched with interest as Harry tapped a brick on the far wall of the courtyard.

The wall fell away, revealing a street lined with shops on either side and filled with, presumably, witches and wizards all wearing -

"Academic robes?" John muttered as he followed Harry through the opening. "Really?"

"Height of fashion," Harry commented. "Since 1795. Or whenever. I don't think it's changed much at all since the dawn of time, really."

"So we stand out like sore thumbs," John said, glancing down at his fatigues and Harry's jeans, T-shirt, and duster…though the duster was made from a material John didn't recognize.

"We can buy you a dragonhide coat like mine," Harry said. "You'll blend a little better."

"Dragonhide?" John repeated, unable to conceal his shock. "That's what that is?"

"Hungarian Horntail," Harry replied. "Coincidentally, the same one I outflew in fourth year."

"Are they reptilian? Do they shed their skins like a reptile?" John asked, following as Harry turned down the street. He focused on the conversation so he wouldn't gawk like a tourist.

It wasn't John's first visit to a magical area, but it was his first visit to Diagon Alley, and it wasn't anything like the magical enclaves that he'd visited with Harry in California and Washington, DC. Those had been a lot like any shopping mall in the country, with witches and wizards wearing what he considered normal clothing. Only the near-universal presence of some kind of bracelet or wristband - which Harry said was a wand holster - indicated they weren't regular people.

By contrast, British witches and wizards seemed to revel in their unique sartorial choices.

… which didn't bother John at all. The way they all but sneered at him and Harry, though - _that_ bothered him.

It seemed to bother Harry, too, judging by the almost palpable aura of annoyance his cousin radiated.

"Don't actually curse anyone," John muttered under his breath, and that surprised a laugh from his cousin.

"It's just annoying," Harry said, and he pitched his biting tone a little louder than usual. "I fought a goddamned war at _seventeen_ over blood-purity crap. It _sucks_ that so little has changed since then, despite the people who _died_ for it."

At least a few people looked down and hurried away.

"Subtle," John said.

"I thought I was being too obvious to be subtle."

It was John's turn to laugh, and then they were in a shop improbably named Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment. Harry made his way to the till near the back of the shop - and why would the till be at the back of the shop, rather than the front? John could only chalk it up to the general strangeness of the wizarding world - and addressed the clerk.

"I need a trunk," he said, "with a dimensional store - ideally four compartments, but three will do."

The clerk - a dark-haired young man, possibly not even out of his teens - looked up with a bored expression … that disappeared in an instant when his gaze landed on Harry.

"Y-you're Harry Potter."

"Last I checked," Harry said, and maybe it could've been a joke, if it hadn't been for the gauntlet they'd run on the way down Diagon Alley.

"H-how can I help you, sir?"

John slapped a hand on Harry's shoulder. "I got this."

Harry sighed. "Thanks."

John approached the clerk, crowding close enough to the counter that the clerk had no choice but to focus on him, and grinned at him. "Hi."

The clerk blinked a couple of times and then focused on him, despite sneaking glances at Harry. "May I help you?"

"Trunk," John said. "Dimensional store, at least three compartments."

"Certainly, sir," the clerk said. "Right this way."

The transaction proceeded fairly smoothly after that, though John had to endure a discussion of the attributes of various dimensional trunks that he only halfway understood, and it wasn't long before they were back out in Diagon Alley proper.

"Is it always like that?" John asked.

"Not always that bad, but yes, everyone recognizes the scar."

John winced. "That sucks."

"And blows at the same time," Harry said. "Which would be impossible, except for magic."

John chuckled. "Good to see you have a bit of a sense of humor about it."

"Have to," Harry said. "Otherwise, I'd turn all of magical Britain to rubble."

Thankfully, the rest of the trip was uneventful. They stopped at Flourish and Blotts and a second-hand book shop for books on runes, potions, and arithmancy - whatever that was; then Obscurus Books and Whizz Hard Books, who were apparently magical publishers, on the off chance they have anything useful; two different apothecary shops for potion ingredients; and then Potage's Cauldron Shop for cauldrons for making the potions. John hadn't even imagined that there would be so many different sizes of cauldrons, let alone materials from which they were made. Harry chose a set that appeared to have two sizes - small and larger - of each material.

"It's like buying a cookware set," Harry said. "It may not be exactly what you like, but it'll get the job done. Besides, if non-magicals are brewing potions on Atlantis, it's best to keep things as simple as possible."

"Wait." John stopped in his tracks, barely remembering to move out of the flow of traffic. "Non-magicals can brew potions? _I_ can brew potions if I want?"

"Most of them," Harry said. "As long as you have the right ingredients and equipment - proper cauldron and such. There are only a few that require active magic while they're brewing."

John had to grin. "Cool." Then he sobered. "So once we get where we're going," he corrected himself, "us non-magicals will be able to help out in a magical capacity, too?"

"Absolutely," Harry said. "Blood replenishing potions, healing potions, pepper-up potions - all invaluable in a combat situation, and every one of them can be brewed by anyone whose brains are good for more than keeping the bones of their skulls apart."

John laughed. "And I guarantee you, everyone connected with the program has sufficient brainpower for it."

"I noticed," Harry said dryly, then his expression sobered. "Time to beard the lion in its den."

John glanced up and noted the sign on the door they had come to: _The Daily Prophet - Wizarding Britain's #1 Newspaper_.

The title made him wince. He'd heard a few stories about the _Prophet_ , especially some that indicated it had only a passing acquaintance with factual reporting, and he knew that Harry had had a few bad experiences with reporters for the _Prophet_ and was therefore understandably reluctant to approach it again, even if only to place a classified ad.

His hand landed on his cousin's shoulder without his conscious intent. "Let's give 'em hell, Harry."

Harry chuckled. "I don't give 'em hell. I give 'em the truth, and they think it's hell."

"Close enough," John muttered as Harry opened the door and preceded him inside.

The _Prophet_ offices looked exactly like how John imagined a newspaper office would look - if said office consisted of a reception area that barely separated the main entrance from the bullpen that was the nerve center of any newspaper.

The receptionist didn't bother to look up from whatever she was doing - reading some other magazine? John decided as he glanced over the low pony wall separating her desk from the rest of the reception area.

"May I help you?" she asked in a very bored tone.

"I'd like to place an advert," Harry said before turning to John. "What do you think - full page?"

John shrugged. "Depends how desperate you want to look."

"Right - half-page advert," Harry told the woman - who, honestly, couldn't look more bored if she tried.

"Advert editor isn't in until tomorrow," she said, and John watched Harry's expression flicker and harden. It wasn't a sight he was used to seeing.

"Let me try again," Harry said. "My name is Harry Potter, and I'd like to place a quarter-page advert."

John would never admit how much he enjoyed watching the receptionist jump so high she stumbled over her chair. Served her right for not actually doing her job by greeting the customers.

Harry's mouth had twisted into a wry expression. "And you wonder why I spend so much time in the non-magical world."

"Not anymore," John replied as the receptionist righted herself.

"Very sorry, Mr. Potter - I didn't recognize you," the receptionist said. John thought Harry would've been perfectly justified in saying _you might have if you'd bothered to look up_ , but Harry just offered a shadow of a smile.

"Quite all right. Now, about the advert…?"

"Yes, of course. One moment, please." Moving with more alacrity than John had assumed she was capable of, the woman scrawled a note, folded it into a paper airplane, and launched it.

John watched it disappear deeper into the building. "Really?"

"Really," Harry said. "That's how the Ministry sends inter-office memos, too."

"Your world is really very strange," John observed quietly. The receptionist glanced at him with a frown but didn't otherwise react.

"You don't know the half of it," Harry replied.

"Harry?" A deep bass voice called, and Harry looked toward the source. He frowned for just a moment, then he broke out in a grin the likes of which John had rarely seen from his cousin.

"Justin!" Harry grasped the other man's hand. "Been ages - how're you doing?"

"Well enough, since the divorce," the brown-haired man - Justin - replied. "What've you been up to lately? Rumor has it you resigned from the Aurors?"

"Sort of," Harry hedged. "But that's why we're here - oh, sorry. John, this is Justin Finch-Fletchley. He was at Hogwarts with me. Hufflepuff, though I can't hold that against him. Justin, my cousin, John Sheppard."

Justin took John's outstretched hand with a curious expression. "Muggleborn, like me?"

"Technically, squib-born," John replied easily. "But I won't hold it against me if you won't."

That surprised a laugh from the other man, and he gestured them down a corridor. "So Mindy says you want to place an advert? Selling your Firebolt, maybe?"

" _Hell_ to the no," Harry replied with feeling. "That broom's gotten me out of a lot of scrapes, and I'll keep it 'til I die. I might ask them to bury it with me…"

Justin laughed, and then they were in what appeared to be his office. He gestured them to seats before sitting behind his desk. "If not that, then what? Can't imagine you placing a personal ad…"

"Not really, no," Harry replied. "John's got the wording of it."

Only because John had been more familiar with Shackleton's famous recruitment pitch. Still, John said, "Ready?"

Justin set up a quill of some kind, and John was only mildly surprised to see it floating as if of its own accord.

"Just dictate how you want the advert to read," Justin said.

"Uh - right." John cleared his throat. "Witches and wizards wanted for hazardous journey. Unknown dangers, exploration of new worlds and new civilizations, safe return uncertain. Must be able to navigate the non-magical world and cast a Patronus Charm. Interested parties complete and submit questionnaire." Then he gave the website address that he'd arranged with assistance from Rodney McKay and Sam Carter.

When he was done dictating, Justin let out a low whistle. "I don't even know what kind of questionnaire you'd have for that."

"Mostly questions on navigating the non-magical world," Harry answered easily. "A few others - whether they have any impediment to a year-long journey, that sort of thing."

"A _year_?" Justin looked completely stunned. "Wow. … And, sorry, Harry, but I have to ask - is this legitimate?"

"Absolutely," Harry replied. "I signed on myself last week. John's been signed on longer than that."

Not by much, but John saw no reason to tell the other man that.

Justin re-read the advert before looking up at Harry. "Got to tell you, even with a quarter page, I don't know how many people this will attract."

"We don't need many," Harry said.

"Still - mind if I change it up a bit… use your name?"

"Justin -" Harry began, but the other man held up a hand.

"I know, I know - you hate your fame and using your name to get you anything. I was there for the Triwizard Tournament, remember?" Justin paused, only continuing when Harry nodded tightly. "But if we use your name in this, you'll get a lot more applicants, so you'll have a better pool to pick from. How many do you want?" he added, almost as an afterthought.

"Five to ten," Harry said. "But don't put that in the advert." He turned to John. "Because I had an idea that the general might like."

Huh. John wondered what that might be, but said only, "Tell me later."

"So what are you thinking, Justin?" Harry asked, turning back to his former classmate.

"I get the reference to Shackleton and to _Star Trek_ ," Justin said.

"Two of the questions are about the source material," John admitted.

"How about borrowing one more?" Justin said. "I'm thinking a header, _Harry Potter Wants You_ \- with our without your portrait, your choice - and then the text. Just a bit more eye-catching."

John saw that Harry was about to refuse, so put in, "I think it's a good idea."

"What?" Harry's head snapped toward him. " _Why_?"

"Because they'll be pre-disposed to work with you, and therefore to follow your orders."

"I answer to you," Harry said.

"Only in terms of overall strategy," John said. "I haven't a clue how to command magic-users. You do."

Harry just gave a silent sigh. "Okay, Justin - I'll defer to you. Just don't do anything extravagant, okay?"

"You have my word, Harry."

Five minutes later, John followed Harry back out into Diagon Alley - which had gotten far more crowded in the few minutes they'd been inside the _Prophet_ offices.

Harry's hand clenched around John's bicep, followed by Harry's voice in John's ear. "Apparating in three. Two. One."

John appreciated the warning as he felt like he was being yanked away by his navel. He might have wished it to have been a little longer a warning, but at least Harry had given one.

A moment later, they appeared in an alley off Charing Cross Road, judging by the vehicular and pedestrian traffic he could see.

"Nothing like apparition for a quick getaway," John observed. "What now?"

"We wait five or ten minutes, then head back to the Leaky," Harry said. "I learned long ago never to make a witch mad at me if I could avoid it."

"Your friend Anna," John said. "No - Hannah."

"Right." Harry hesitated. "You don't have to come if you don't want to."

"And miss the opportunity to try firewhiskey?" John said. "Not a chance."


	8. Chapter 8

It took more than a month to process all the applications they received in response to the ad Harry placed.

The initial round of questionnaires totaled almost four hundred - more than Harry expected, but less than John had and, in one of the perks of being Harry's cousin, John teased him mercilessly about underestimating his popularity.

To neither of their surprise, almost none of the respondents had indicated any impediment to a year-long journey. They'd placed that question first in order to prevent otherwise interested parties from wasting their time answering the questionnaire.

Those few who had indicated a problem, though, were reviewed for their other answers. Just because they couldn't go to Atlantis didn't mean they couldn't help in other ways.

The website sorted the applicants by whether their patronus was corporeal or not. Those who managed a non-corporeal patronus would be evaluated for participation in the Stargate Program generally.

As O'Neill had said, "It never hurts to have a magic-user at your side," which led John to wonder whether the general had ever played _Dungeons & Dragons_, but he'd never risk the general's wrath by asking.

Those who had non-corporeal patronuses but could navigate the non-magical world (based on their answers to the pertinent questions on the survey) were forwarded to Major Davis, O'Neill's aide de camp, for further screening. Harry was pleased that there were several dozen of those, even if Davis made growly noises about the extra work he'd have.

In the end, twelve of those with non-corporeal patronuses took positions with the program. John watched Harry administer the Unbreakable Vows each of them made to General O'Neill - who looked somewhat bemused the entire time. When they were done, he drew the general aside.

"Something on your mind, Sheppard?"

"Just that it would be nice if those of us in the know about Harry's world had some way of identifying each other, so we'd know who was available for a friendly ear," he said. "Unless you plan on reading the entire program in on the existence of magic, of course - that decision's above my pay grade."

"Huh." The general grunted in a way that John had learned meant he was thinking something over. "Another patch, you mean?"

"It doesn't even have to be that obvious," John said. "Maybe change the color of the trim around the flag patch everyone wears. Just something so we know who we can speak freely around."

"That school," O'Neill said. "The one Harry went to - and, apparently, almost everyone who answered the ad."

"Hogwarts," John offered. "What about it?"

"It have a motto? Or a slogan?"

John chuckled. " _Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus._ "

O'Neill blinked, and again. "Latin? I caught something about a dragon…"

"Never tickle a sleeping dragon."

"Seems like sound life advice."

"As you say, sir."

"Only problem with that is, once people find out what it means, they'll all want one."

"Different color embroidery?"

O'Neill gave a one-shoulder shrug. "I'll ask Major Davis his input. We'll come up with something sooner than later."

By the time Harry was ready to drill those applicants with corporeal patronuses, patches with the Hogwarts motto had been issued.

John grinned at the patch on his shoulder. The red lettering on the pale gray background denoted that he was in the know about magic. Others had lettering with yellow, blue, or green lettering - none of which had any additional meaning.

"Interesting choice," Harry murmured as they waited for the first round of patronus-casting applicants to portkey into the simulation room at Cheyenne Mountain. "All the main colors of the four Hogwarts houses."

"Red for Gryffindor, since that's where this whole thing started," John said and grinned when Harry elbowed him.

Then people started arriving - with varying degrees of grace, John noted. He leaned toward his cousin. "You didn't fall when you portkeyed in."

"Lots of practice," Harry replied, equally quietly. "And innate balance - have to have, to play Quidditch effectively."

"Harry!"

The exclamation was followed by Harry's _oof_ as a lithe blonde woman slammed into him, wrapping her arms around him. John moved to free his cousin, but Harry's arms went around her in the same instant.

"Luna!"

It had been a long time since John had seen his cousin smile so genuinely, and John let himself relax a bit.

"I didn't know you could navigate the non-magical world," Harry said as the two broke apart.

"Oh, I can't," the woman - Luna - said, her voice soft and ethereal with a somewhat distracted sound to it.

"Fortunately," a man said, "I can."

"Rolf." Harry offered his hand and the newcomer shook it. Harry looked between them. "You aren't thinking of leaving the twins behind, are you?"

"Oh, no," Luna said. "We're not coming with you."

John shared an inquiring glance with his cousin. "Then, not to be rude, but why are you here?"

"Who are you?" Luna asked, and John found himself unwillingly amused by her direct manner.

"Sorry," Harry said. "Rolf and Luna Scamander, my cousin John Sheppard."

Then John found himself wrapped in the blonde's arms. She was surprisingly strong for her size, and for a moment, he feared for his ribs.

"Not that I don't enjoy being hugged by a beautiful woman," John said, "but I don't expect it on first meeting."

"Harry's my family, and you're his family, so you get a family hug," Luna said, and John supposed it made an odd sort of sense.

Then she released him and he, too, shook Rolf's hand.

"He did ask a good question," Harry said. "If you're not coming with us, why did you come?"

"Just to say farewell," Luna said, and John felt his eyebrows rising. Harry just nodded, as though she were making perfect sense.

"Take care of yourself, wherever you're going," Luna told Harry. "And keep an eye out for Crumple-Horned Snorcacks."

"I've a feeling I'm more likely to find nargles," Harry replied. "But I'll let you know whatever I find."

She smiled serenely and took her husband's hand. "Have an interesting trip."

Then they spun away.

"She does realize that _interesting_ can be a curse, right?" John asked.

"For her," Harry said with a smile, "it's the best she could ever hope for. Now, let's see what we've got."

And John was embarrassed to realize that he'd lost track of the arriving people during the conversation. When he looked up, the room was crowded with people.

Harry took a step forward. "Thanks, all, for coming."

"Where are we, Harry?" a dark-skinned man who appeared to be Harry's age spoke from near the front of the group of twenty-three asked.

Harry grinned. "Hi, Dean. And I can't tell you that until you swear an Unbreakable Vow not to talk about anything that happens today with anyone who doesn't already know about it. If you don't believe you can make that vow in good conscience, I'll make you a return portkey, no questions asked and no hard feelings."

There was a shuffle of movement, and then two people - a man and a woman - stepped forward.

"Diagon Alley?" Harry asked. The woman nodded, once, and the man hesitated. "Somewhere else?"

"I'm supposed to meet my family in France," he said, and John hid a scowl. The questionnaire was supposed to rule out anyone with significant family ties on Earth.

"French Ministry of Magic?" Harry offered, and now the man nodded.

A moment later, both of them were gone, leaving several dozen people ready to make the vow.

"This is my cousin, John Sheppard," Harry said. "He's the one you'll make your vow to."

A man with slicked-back dark hair frowned at John. "I don't recognize you," he said. "And I thought I knew everyone I went to school with at Hogwarts."

"Didn't go to Hogwarts," John replied easily, and the man's brows furrowed, presumably at John's American accent.

"Ilvermorny?" he asked.

"Nope," John replied. "Stanford."

The man's puzzlement turned into a sneer. " _Muggle_."

"You don't have enough information to conclude that," John countered. "But, technically, because you asked, I'm non-magical."

"Squib," the man said. "Even worse."

"And that's all we need from you," Harry said. "Thank you for coming." He offered the man a pencil.

"What's this?" The man took it, and, with a silent whoosh of air, he was gone.

"That," Harry said, "was a portkey." He gave the remaining applicants a harder glare. "I didn't fight Voldemort to allow that kind of bigotry in any area I have a choice. If anyone else has a problem with vowing to my cousin, now's the time to say so - no questions, but definite hard feelings. That said, you'd rather I be annoyed with you for this than I be annoyed because I find out at some future date you lied to me."

The shuffle was quieter this time, but three people stepped forward. Harry didn't ask where they wanted to go, just offered them pencils.

"Where'd you send them?" a quiet female voice asked from among the remaining applicants.

"British Ministry of Magic," Harry said. Then he shrugged. "I may hate their prejudice, but they're allowed to believe as they will. They're just not allowed to _act_ on it - and I can't take the risk that they would, if they came with us."

"Came to where?" The man Harry had called Dean asked.

"Vow first, questions later," Harry said, then grinned. "And you just volunteered to go first."

Dean gave an exaggerated sigh but stepped forward gamely enough. A minute later, Dean had made the vow and, non-magical as John was, he still felt the oath settle deep inside him. He made a mental note to discuss it with Harry later.

One by one, Harry swore the others to secrecy, greeting many of them by name, and finally it was John's turn to address the gathered witches and wizards. He counted twenty-one of them remaining, seven women and fourteen men - including Justin Finch-Fletchley, whom John had met at the _Daily Prophet_.

"Thanks for coming," he began. "I'm Lieutenant Colonel John Sheppard of the United States Air Force - roughly equivalent to a Wing Commander in the Royal Air Force," he added, and saw a number of heads nodding along. Then he dropped the bombshell. "I'm the military commander for Stargate Command's Atlantis Expedition."

He watched the words register. _Stargate. Atlantis. Expedition?_

When the murmur of surprise and confusion died, he said, "Short version - yes, there are other planets with alien life. Atlantis used to be on Earth, but at some point in the distant past, it returned to its original home in the Pegasus Galaxy. We're planning an expedition to explore that city. We don't know how long that will take and, to be fully transparent, we're not even sure we'll be able to get back to Earth after we leave. Anybody else want to leave now?"

"Oh, hell no!" Dean exclaimed. "Before I found out I was magical, I wanted to be an astronaut. I'm in!"

John chuckled softly, Harry joining him. "We're glad to have you, Dean," John said. "And the rest of you …?"

There were nods and words of agreement, and John said, "All right. The reason we chose you is that you all can cast a corporeal patronus - or at least, you all _claimed_ you can. If you can't, now's the time to admit it."

Nobody did, so John said, "Cast it now."

Harry cast first, just as they'd planned, and the spirit-deer he'd named Prongs leapt from his wand to trot around the room.

John counted thirteen spirit animals and looked to the fourteen people remaining in the room with him and Harry. One blonde-haired woman stood looking depressed despite the positive feelings generated by the patronus animals.

John crossed to her and said quietly, "Problem?"

"I can cast it," she replied, "but not usually on command. I have to meditate to do it. Are we going to have to cast on command?"

"And likely in combat conditions."

"Then I'm not right for this." She swallowed hard and met John's gaze squarely. "I'm sorry to have wasted your time."

"Just because you're not a fit for Atlantis doesn't mean the program couldn't use you otherwise," John said. "What do you do in the magical world?"

"I'm a medi-witch," she said. "Like a nurse."

"We can definitely use you," John said. "If you're interested?"

She smiled, and her face, which had been somewhat plain, became quite attractive. "Definitely."

"Then hang around, and we'll talk after, okay?"

She nodded and stepped back into line with the others.

"All right, thanks, all," John raised his voice as he returned to his place beside Harry. "No need to exhaust yourselves."

Prongs disappeared, the other patronus animals following suit.

"So -" a dark-haired man with what could have been an Irish accent said. "Atlantis has Dementors?"

"We're not sure, Seamus," Harry said. "Something like them, at least. Anyone here good at Ancient Runes?" A couple of affirmative noises sounded, and Harry nodded. "I'll show you what I found later. Maybe you'll recognize it better than me." Then he took a breath. "I have to admit, I wasn't expecting this many to show up."

"How many do you need?" Justin Finch-Fletchley asked.

"The expedition currently has about fifty members," John said. "Harry and I discussed it and figured five or six magic-users should be enough for the first wave, at least."

"You're planning for more?" a brown-haired witch asked.

"More that we're not ruling it out," John answered. "And I believe in preparing for the worst - which is why we want people who can cast a patronus. Even if what we find in Pegasus isn't exactly a Dementor, it may still be vulnerable to the patronus."

She nodded that she understood, and John glanced over the others to see if there were any more questions. There didn't appear to be, so he said, "Harry's the expert on the patronus -" and that drew a few chuckles that John didn't quite understand "- so I'm turning the rest of this evaluation over to him." He turned to his cousin. "When you're done, let me know, and we'll go from there."

Harry nodded, and John got the hell out of there. He didn't want to be around magical combat, even if it was just sparring and even if his cousin - the biggest magical badass he knew of - were in charge of it, without a P-90 and a metric ton of ammunition.

:-:-:-:-:

Ultimately, Harry chose six more witches and wizards to come with them to Atlantis, including the dark-haired witch who had to meditate to cast the Patronus Charm.

When John questioned him about it, Harry met his cousin's gaze evenly. "She's a medi-witch - another magical healer is never a bad thing."

John had agreed with that, and then authorized the six to go to their favorite magical shopping districts and stock two trunks each the way he and Harry had, with potions ingredients and brewing supplies, seeds and starter plants as well as food in a stasis charm, healing potions, and so on.

Each trunk could hold enough for six months, plus they'd be shrinking their mundane supplies for easier transport, so Harry was confident that as long as Atlantis was habitable, the expedition would be a success.

While the other six were off on their errand, Harry busied himself enchanting medallions for the magic-users to wear. Riffing off the coins Hermione had created to summon Dumbledore's Army, Harry cast the Protean Charm on the medallions. As he had no way of knowing how to designate locations on Atlantis, he added a tracking charm that the wearer could use to home in on whichever medallion sent the emergency signal.

While he worked, his cousin sat opposite him reviewing supply lists and God only knew what else. It was a strangely companionable silence that reminded Harry of studying with his friends at Hogwarts.

It wasn't until he sat back, his work complete, that Harry realized John had been watching him - rather intently - for a while.

"What?" he asked.

"What are you doing?" John countered.

"Making sure that we can all get where we're needed quickly," Harry replied, and explained the medallions to his cousin.

"Nice," John said. "It's just too bad we don't have something similar. I mean, we have radios and such, but we can't just teleport to where we're needed."

"Which brings up a question I haven't asked yet," Harry said. "Thanks for the segue."

John chuckled. "What's the question?"

"Are we telling anyone else about magic, or are we keeping it to just us, O'Neill, Jackson and the others already in the know?"

John didn't even blink at the question, just said, "Privacy Charm, please."

Harry cast it and nodded to his cousin.

"While we're on Earth, I don't think we have a choice but to keep it on the down low, Statute of Secrecy and all," John said. "But once we're on Atlantis, I don't know that we'll have that same choice. We sure as hell won't have a choice if the Dementor-type things show up and patronuses start running around, but I think it's better to reveal it before that kind of thing happens. Your thoughts?"

"Remarkably similar to yours," Harry replied. "People will be upset that we didn't tell them beforehand, but I don't see that we have any other choice without breaking either the Statute of Secrecy or the confidentiality of the Stargate Program."

"There's no good answer," John said by way of agreement. "But the first time you save our asses, I guarantee they'll be happy you're there. I should've asked this yesterday, but … you're confident in your picks?"

"Absolutely," Harry replied. "I worked with Cassiopeia in the Aurors. Dean, Dennis, Justin, and Seamus were all in the D.A. with me and fought in the final battle at Hogwarts. Laura wasn't in the D.A., but she fought well."

"And a medi-witch is never a bad thing," John finished. "Right. Okay - I'm being paranoid, I guess."

"Given what we're going to do, a little paranoia's not a bad thing," Harry observed and dispelled the Privacy Charm he'd cast.

"So - you think we're ready when the others get back?"

Harry smirked. "You mean, do I think you can tell O'Neill we're ready? Yes, as we can be."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Throughout the story, a few bits of dialogue have been taken directly from the transcript of SGA 1.01 and 1.02, "Rising," parts 1 and 2. Most of those bits occur from this chapter through the end of the story.

On the day of departure, John arrived in the gate room at Stargate Command fifteen minutes before the scheduled meeting time. O'Neill had given everyone four days after they arrived in the States after leaving McMurdo to say goodbye to family and friends or make whatever other arrangements might be necessary before they had to report to Cheyenne Mountain.

He and Harry had apparated to the house in Virginia to spend their final few days on Earth with his father and brother. It had been more difficult than John had expected to … not lie, exactly, but not tell Dad and Dave more than he was taking a posting that meant he might be out of touch for a year - and that Harry was going with him.

Their reactions - hugs and barely-concealed tears - had skirted the edge of emotional overload for John, but it was worth it to have a going-away barbecue with his family. Harry had even asked Neville and Hannah, and Luna and Rolf, his closest remaining friends in the magical world, so that last barbecue was more of a party than a wake. Which was good, because John fully intended to come back from Atlantis hale and hearty.

But now, staring at the dormant stargate, John wondered if he shouldn't have turned down the trip, even knowing that his ATA gene was the strongest on record and that the gene might make the difference between success and failure.

He'd given his word, though, and he couldn't - he _wouldn't_ \- let any of the expedition members down.

"Ready to go, Colonel?" Elizabeth Weir's question, quiet as it was, made him start. "Sorry."

"My fault," John replied. "I should've been more situationally aware. And I don't think any of us are really _ready_ for this, but we've prepared all we can, so that'll have to be enough."

"But think, Colonel," Weir said, her eyes alight with anticipation, "we might meet the Ancients."

It was on the tip of John's tongue to remind her that the Ancients might not appreciate having their galaxy invaded, but Harry strolled in just then, so he shifted his attention to his cousin. "Harry."

"John." Harry came up beside him and joined him in his surveillance of the gate. "Hard to believe that in an hour, we'll be stepping through that to another galaxy."

"Assuming we can make a stable connection," John reminded him. "If we can't, then all of this was for nothing."

"Have faith, Colonel," Weir said before giving them a nod and turning away to go do … well, whatever she was going to do before the dial-out.

"She worries me," Harry said quietly. "I don't have any good experiences with zealots."

"Few people do," John returned, equally quietly. "We'll just have to keep her under control." Harry nodded, and John raised his voice to a conversational level as Ford, McKay, and the others started arriving, gear in tow. "Your people ready?"

"As we'll ever be," Harry said, then frowned at him. "You want us to go through first?"

John shook his head. "You and me, determine if it's safe, then bring the others through."

Harry nodded, and it wasn't long before the expedition members had gathered, a MALP robot had been placed on the ramp leading to the gate itself, and the supply convoy lined up behind it.

Then Elizabeth Weir came back into the room and took a position on the ramp to the gate.

"Can I have everyone's attention, please?" she began. "We're about to try to make a connection. We have been unable to predict exactly how much power this is going to take, and we may only get the one chance at this. So if we're able to achieve a stable wormhole, we're not going to risk shutting the 'gate down. We'll send in the MALP robot probe, check for viability, and go. Everything in one shot. Now, every one of you volunteered for this mission, and you represent over a dozen countries. You are the world's best and brightest. And in light of the adventure we are about to embark on, you're also the bravest. I hope we all return one day having discovered a whole new realm for humanity to explore. But as all of you know, we may never be able to return home. I'd like to offer you all one last chance to withdraw your participation."

From where he stood at the base of the gate ramp, John surveyed the assembled mass of people. No one moved. No one spoke.

Weir smiled. "Begin the dialing sequence," she said before stepping down from the ramp and heading to the control room.

John followed her, taking up a position where he could look over Rodney McKay's shoulder, and he held back a cheer as the eighth and final chevron engaged and the gate activated. Below in the gate room, the expedition members applauded and cheered.

"Send the MALP," Weir ordered, and John bit back a reprimand. She was the civilian leader of the expedition, but to his mind, the MALP was a reconnaissance device, which fell under his purview as the military commander. Still, that wasn't a battle to fight here and now.

The MALP rolled up the ramp and through the gate, and John turned his attention to the monitor bank.

After a moment, the image on the screen resolved into …

"A large room?" McKay said, sounding somewhere between astonished and puzzled.

"Structurally intact?" Daniel Jackson asked incredulously.

McKay checked a readout. "Environmental sensors say there's oxygen … no measurable toxins." He straightened and turned to O'Neill and John. "We have viable life support."

"Guess we're not getting out of this," John said with a grin.

O'Neill nodded. "Dr. Weir, Colonel Sheppard - you have a go."

John jogged back down the stairs and into the gate room. "All right, people! We don't know how much power we've got. Security teams One and Two, you're up first. All other personnel will follow on our signal. Once on the other side, keep moving, clear the debarkation area. On my lead…"

Weir caught up to him. "Hold on, Colonel!" She snagged her backpack. "We go through together."

"No, Dr. Weir, we don't," John snapped back. "You are a diplomat, and not in any way qualified to set up a secure perimeter. You'll lead the civilian contingent once we give the all clear."

"But -!"

"No discussion, no debate, Dr. Weir," John said. "You obey the order or you stay behind. Bates!"

"Sir!" the young lieutenant responded.

"Make sure she follows the order," John said, then turned his attention to his cousin. "Ready?"

"Ready." Harry stepped forward to join John on the ramp. Weir squawked indignantly, but John ignored her.

"Let's go," he told Harry and, in tandem, they stepped through the gate.

A moment of disorientation later, John stepped into the room he'd seen on the monitor - only to find it lighting up, as if in welcome.

"Well, that's lots better than apparating," Harry muttered as he stepped through.

With barely an acknowledgment, John took a few steps forward with his weapon ready, scanning the room before them. Lights came on as he moved, and he wondered if they were hooked to a motion detector.

He heard Harry whisper something - a spell, presumably - and after a moment, Harry said, "All clear."

"All clear," John repeated into his radio. "Come on through."

As soon as the security teams cleared the event horizon, he ordered them to secure the immediate area, and everyone who came through to clear the gate and otherwise remain stationary.

That done, he and Harry started to explore the immediate area. A door caught his attention - more for the fact that it was there than anything else.

"Who's doing that?" Weir asked. "Lighting up the steps under Colonel Sheppard?"

"Security - any alien contact?" John demanded through his radio.

He heard the negative responses and took a few steps. "The lights seem to be coming on by themselves."

"Because that's not ominous," McKay muttered.

"That's everyone, John," Harry said.

"General O'Neill?" Weir said into her radio. "Atlantis offers greetings from the Pegasus Galaxy. You may cut power to the gate."

"Confirmed," John said. "Atlantis, out."

The gate shut down … but not until after a magnum of champagne rolled through it.

"Secure the bubbly," John ordered and grinned back at Bates as the young officer did so.

And then it was a matter of securing the immediate area and exploring within a reasonable radius. John wanted to be part of the exploratory teams, but as the commander, it was his responsibility to coordinate all of the teams rather than participate in one of them.

Harry, however, was under no such restriction, and he took two of his magical companions and set off. Bates led another team, and Lieutenant Cadman took a third.

"It's like the city is … coming to life," Weir murmured. "Waking up, in a way."

John followed McKay up a set of steps that led off the gate room floor. "Opinion?"

"We're in another galaxy," McKay replied, somewhat absently as he examined the panels before them. "This area could be power control systems, possibly a computer interface -"

"Can you find out?" John asked.

"Of course," McKay snapped, and John hid a grin at the other man's presumption.

"Colonel Sheppard," Lieutenant Bates' voice came through his radio. "Can you come down here? We're three levels below you."

"On my way, Bates," John acknowledged. He looked at McKay. "Don't blow us up while I'm gone."

McKay scowled but didn't look up from what he was doing.

John followed the path Bates had taken and emerged into a corridor.

"We've only been able to secure a fraction of the place," Bates said. "It's huge."

"Understood," John said. Truthfully, he'd expected nothing less.

"So it might really be the lost city of Atlantis?" Weir asked from behind him. John suppressed a sigh. He would've preferred that she'd stayed behind, but as civilian leader of the expedition, that was a murky issue.

"I'd bet that way," Bates said. "But you need to see this."

Bates led them to a glass door, and John bit back a curse. Across from them, a glass-like window showed a green image that reminded him of times he'd gone SCUBA diving with his family. At the very top edge of what he could see, a bit of sunlight reflected off a wave.

"Oh, my God," Weir breathed. "We're underwater."

"Several hundred feet, I'd guess," John said, and blew out a breath as he took in the cityscape before him, all submerged. "It could be a problem if we can't dial out."

"Hey, guys," came McKay's voice. "We're -"

"Underwater," John finished as McKay came up beside him, staring at the view.

"Yeah," McKay said, his tone awed. "Wow. That is impressive, isn't it?" Then he shook himself. "Um, Dr. Beckett has found something you should see."

John, Weir, and Harry followed him to a room off the gate room where they'd arrived. Beckett stood staring at a holographic projection of a woman. She was speaking and John was surprised to understand her.

"The recording loops," Beckett said, his Scottish burr more pronounced in his excitement. "This is my second time through."

"Have we missed anything?" John asked.

"Not much," Beckett replied, but John would still watch the whole thing for himself. For now, he focused on the woman's image.

"… In time, a thousand worlds bore the fruit of life in this form. Then one day, our people set foot upon a dark world where a terrible enemy slept. Never before had we encountered beings with powers that rivaled our own. In our overconfidence, we were unprepared and outnumbered. The enemy fed upon the defenseless human worlds like a great scourge, until finally, only Atlantis remained. This city's great shield was powerful enough to withstand their terrible weapons, but here we were besieged for many years. In an effort to save the last of our kind, we submerged our great city into the ocean. The Atlantis Stargate was the one and only link back to Earth from this galaxy, and those who remained used it to return to that world that was once home. There, the last survivors of Atlantis lived out the remainder of their lives. This city was left to slumber, in the hope that our kind would one day return."

The woman fell silent, and Beckett stepped back from the console by the projector. A moment later, the woman's image faded.

"Let's watch it from the beginning," Weir said as one of the scientists - Grodin, John thought - rushed in and spoke quietly to McKay.

"Belay that," McKay said, and Weir turned to him with a frown. McKay actually looked nervous when he said, "Power levels throughout the city are dropping like a stone."

"…which means?" John prompted.

"If we don't stop everything we're doing right now, we are dead."

With that, McKay rushed from the room. John barely glanced at Harry before following the chief scientist back to the control room, where he checked a number of readouts on his computer.

"From what we've been able to ascertain, the city is powered by three Zero-Point Modules," he said. "Two are entirely depleted, and the third is reaching maximum entropy. When it does, it will die too, and nothing can reverse that."

John's gut churned at the implications. "All security teams, fall back to the gate room," he ordered into his radio.

"Good start," McKay said, "but it's not going to be enough."

"Well, how much time do we have?" Weir asked.

"Hours?" McKay offered. "Maybe days, if we minimize our power expenditure."

"What about our own generators?" Beckett asked.

"We're working on it, but the equations don't look good."

"So we need to find more ZPMs," Weir said.

McKay tapped a few buttons on the computer. "If there were any here, we'd be able to find them."

"Can we use the Stargate?" John asked.

McKay shook his head. "There's nowhere near enough power to dial back to Earth."

"How about somewhere in this galaxy?" Harry asked.

"That's relatively easy," McKay said. "Fortunately, we've been able to access the Stargate control system and a library of known gate addresses. Think you can read the database entries and pick us a good one?"

"For a given definition of _good_ ," Harry replied and slid into a space next to McKay.

"Assemble a team, Colonel," Weir said. "We need safe harbor, or better still, another power source."

John glared at her, but decided this wasn't the time to remind her that the only civilian he answered to was the President of the United States. Instead, he looked at Harry. "You in?"

Harry grinned without looking up from where he worked at the computer. "Wouldn't miss it."

John grinned back and surveyed the military personnel before him. "Lorne, you're the ranking officer after me, so you're drawing the short straw to stay behind."

"Roger that," Lorne acknowledged.

"Bates, Ford, you're with us," John said.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for naughty words.

Harry followed John through the gate, the handgun John had insisted he learn to use loosely held in his right hand. His left was ready to receive his wand from its holster should the need arise.

They'd arrived during the planet's night, and while the others on the team had night-vision goggles, Harry had cast a silent low-light vision spell as he and John spread out a bit to give the other two as much cover as they could.

Harry found himself analyzing John's choice to bring only six of their number on this mission. Their team wasn't strong enough to take anything by force - but, then, maybe that was John's intention, to approach from a position of friendly negotiation rather than strength or force.

He only hoped they had time for the friendly approach.

A rustling in the brush nearby had John holding up a fist, signaling the group to hold in place. A moment later, a lithe figure ran into the clearing around the gate. Ford raised and readied his weapon, and the figure - who Harry could see now was a young man, perhaps his mid-teens - stopped to stare at Ford, his expression edging from wariness to fear.

Another figure, wearing a white mask, broke from the underbrush and tackled the first boy.

From beneath his companion, the first one cried, "Please - don't hurt us!"

His companion shifted position and stared at the group fearfully. John took a step forward, but before he could do more than that, a taller figure emerged.

"Please!" The newcomer - a man perhaps ten years Harry's senior - said. "They're just playing!"

John slowly lowered his weapon, but Harry stepped forward. Of the team, he had the most non-lethal options at his disposal. "Sorry for frightening them. My name's Harry."

"Halling," the man said. "Are you here to trade?"

"Yes," Harry answered, relieved that it was nothing more than the truth. Of course, exactly _what_ they were trading remained to be seen.

Halling nodded, then hugged the two boys to him. "How many times have I told you not to play in the forest after dark?"

The boys shuffled in the manner of boys everywhere who'd been caught doing something they shouldn't.

Halling smiled briefly. "I'm just glad you're safe." Then he looked up to meet Harry's gaze once again. "Teyla will wish to meet with you. Come."

"Ford, Bates," John said, "you're on gate duty. Dial the base and let Dr. Weir know we've made contact with the indigenous people."

"Aye, sir," Ford replied as John and Harry fell into step with Halling and the boys.

"What's that mask you're wearing?" the first boy said to John.

"It helps me see in the dark." John pulled it over his head. "Want to see?"

The boy tried it. "Whoa!"

"Let me see!" The second one, the one in the white mask, said, and as he reached for the night-vision goggles, Harry caught a fuller glimpse of the mask he'd been wearing.

While the second boy tried the goggles, Harry moved a bit closer to John. "Reminds me of a Dementor."

John didn't acknowledge that he'd heard, but when the second boy asked if he could have the goggles, John said, "Sorry, 'fraid not. What's that mask you're wearing?"

The boy hefted it. "This? Wraith."

"What's that?" John asked.

"Don't you know?" The boy asked, even as the first one said, "What world do you come from?"

"One very far away," John said.

"Can we go there?" the boy with the mask asked eagerly. "If you haven't heard of the Wraith it must be safe."

"No place is truly safe," Harry murmured. "Even if it is in a galaxy far, far away."

They fell into a relatively companionable silence after that, and Harry wondered if he should have used Legilimency on any of them to get an idea what they were headed for.

No, he decided eventually. The children likely wouldn't know anything of significance, and Halling was suspicious enough in general that he probably had shields that would take effort to get through.

Finally, they approached a settlement - or perhaps a glorified campsite - with several tents. Campfires burned outside each, as though lighting their way.

Halling paused them outside one of the tents. "It's Halling," he called out. "I bring men from away."

"Enter." The invitation came, pleasantly enough, in a woman's voice.

Harry let John precede him into the tent, following Halling.

Inside, a handful of people sat around a table, mugs before them. The barest remains of a meal littered the table as well. This, Harry thought, was a society who did not waste.

A woman - presumably the one who'd spoken - rose, greeting them with a frown.

"These men wish to trade," Halling said.

John hooked his goggles on his belt and ran a hand through his hair - but, it being Potter hair, the movement only made his hair messier.

"John Sheppard," he said. "And my cousin, Harry Potter."

Which might not have been the best thing to say, Harry reflected. Offering a potential enemy leverage to use against you was not generally a good idea.

"I am Teyla Emmagen, daughter of Tagan," the woman said. "We do not trade with strangers."

"Is that a fact?" John asked, and offered her a smile that, objectively, Harry could call charming. "Well, then - we'll just have to get to know each other. Me, I like Ferris wheels, college football, and anything that goes faster than two hundred miles per hour."

"You know that won't mean anything to her," Harry murmured.

John shrugged. "I'm just trying to be friendly."

Teyla shifted just a bit and seemed to come to a decision. "Each morning, before dawn, our people drink a stout tea to brace us for the coming day. Will you join us?"

John smiled. "I love a good cup of tea."

Harry couldn't help snorting. "You do not, you coffee drinker." He met the woman's gaze and fought the urge to use Legilimency once again. "My people, though - tea is in our blood."

Teyla frowned. "But - he claimed you as kin. How are you of different people?"

"On our planet," Harry began, "there are enough people that we have separated into different nations. Though John and I share blood kinship, our families are from different nations. Naturally, we have to tease each other about that."

"It is the way of families to tease each other," Teyla said. Then she gestured at her table. "Please, sit, and share our tea."

Harry and John took seats opposite her and accepted the tea she offered. Harry took a sip and strove to keep his expression neutral. "A bit stronger than I usually have."

Beside him, John grinned. "More like coffee. Good stuff."

"What is this … _coffee_?" Teyla asked.

"Where tea is made by steeping leaves and roots," Harry said, "coffee is made by roasting, grinding and steeping the seeds of a specific fruit. You can eat the seeds after they're roasted, but some people find the flavor a bit … much."

"I should like to try it," she said.

"I'm sure we can arrange that," John said. Then he ran a hand through his hair. "I'm not that good at talking in circles. May I be direct?"

"I would prefer that you are."

"We came from a long way away," John said, "on a quest for knowledge. Unfortunately, we don't have enough power to get back home. We're stranded and need a safe place for our people."

"There is no place safe from the Wraith," Teyla said.

Harry sat forward. "Who are these Wraith?"

Teyla eyed them both, wary. "We have never met anyone who did not know." Then she took a breath. "If the Wraith truly have never touched your world, you should go back there when you can."

"But … until then?" John prompted.

"It is a difficult choice," Teyla said. She finished her tea and rose, crossing the tent toward an opening John hadn't noticed before. John glanced at Harry. His cousin was already getting to his feet, so John did as well, and they both followed Teyla outside.

Dawn had stolen in while they'd been inside, and daylight confirmed Harry's impressions from earlier. The settlement consisted entirely of tents, which suggested a nomadic society of some kind, though the mugs and other belongings he'd seen suggested at least a semi-permanent location for firing pottery.

But it was the view across the swamp that caught his breath. There, in plain view, were the remains of a city.

"Is there a reason you aren't settled there?" John asked.

"Our people have long believed that the Wraith will come if we venture into the city of the Ancestors," Teyla said. "But it is a belief we've not tested in some time."

_And why would you?_ Harry asked himself. _Why would you risk your population - because that's what it sounds like - to test a superstition?_

"It has advantages," John observed. "It's far more defensible than this village, for example."

"Defensible?" Teyla sounded surprised. "You intend to try to fight the Wraith?"

"It's what we do," Harry said. "We stand our ground and fight when we must."

Teyla looked between them. "Then there is something you should see - especially as you came here on a quest for knowledge."

:-:-:-:-:

Not quite half an hour later, Teyla led them to the entrance of what appeared to be a cave.

"What is this place?" John asked.

"I used to play here as a child," Teyla said as she started to step inside. "I believe this is where my ancestors hid from the Wraith during the last great attack."

"Wait." Harry held out a hand to keep her from going further in. "Let me scout first."

Teyla scoffed. "I know this cave far better than you."

"True enough," Harry replied with a grin. "But I never said I was scouting on foot."

He took a step into the cave and cast a series of spells. " _Homenum Revelio. Animalis Revelio. Specialis Revelio. Revelio. Aparecium._ "

"What is this?" Teyla breathed so quietly Harry barely heard her.

"A gift that some of our people have," John replied equally quietly. After a moment, he raised his voice. "How's it look, Harry?"

"There's something …" Harry followed the energy he'd felt from the spells a few feet into the cave and into a small niche in the corridor.

" _Lumos._ " The tip of his wand glowed and he squatted to look at something that glinted in the light from his charm.

"What?" John came up behind him and looked over his shoulder. Harry sensed Teyla behind him as well.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I lost that necklace years ago."

She knelt and would have reached for the silver disk gleaming in the light, but Harry stopped her. "Don't. There's something … wrong with it."

"Do you mean it's damaged?" Teyla extended her hand again. "I can get a new cord for it."

Harry caught her wrist. "I said, _don't_."

"What's wrong with it?" John asked.

"I'm not certain," Harry said. He glared at Teyla, and she nodded, her lips pressed into a thin line that reminded him oddly of Professor McGonagall. He released that thought as he released her wrist and she stepped back. He cast a number of diagnostic spells on it and sat back on his haunches.

"I don't know details of what it does, if it does anything, but it's dark as fuck - and I know dark," he added wryly, then looked up at John. "Not something we want anywhere near our people."

"Then we leave it," John said.

"It is mine," Teyla objected.

John faced her fully, his expression serious. "If it can bring danger to my people, the choices are leave it or destroy it."

"It could bring danger to yours, too," Harry pointed out as he stood.

"It is simply a necklace," Teyla said.

"There's nothing simple about that necklace," Harry replied. Then he looked at John. "Matthew 6:13."

John groaned. "Did you _have_ to take that Biblical history class in college?"

"No," Harry said with a grin. "But it was fun."

"Fun." John shook his head. "Still - point taken, if you're sure."

"It's what I always do with dark objects." Harry aimed a Reductor Curse at the necklace, and it shattered into dust.

"How dare you!" Teyla exclaimed.

Harry turned hard eyes on her. "Destroying your necklace was the least I would do to protect my family and friends. But I was taught manners, so I will gladly acquire another necklace for you of similar design or compensate you otherwise for its loss."

Teyla looked shocked by his offer, but he couldn't tell whether it was lingering from his destruction of her necklace or the offer itself. John, though, had moved on, playing his torch over the walls.

"These drawings, these carvings," he said. "Do they represent the destruction of your city?"

Teyla shook herself and turned to John. "No, this far predates that."

"Someone knew it was going to happen?" Harry asked as dread filled him. He and divination didn't have the best track record on Earth. He really didn't want to find out what his relationship with it would be on this planet.

"I believe it happens again and again," Teyla said. "The Wraith allow our population to grow to a certain number, and then they return to … cull it. Sometimes, a few hundred years will pass before they wake again. The last great holocaust was five generations ago, but still they return in smaller numbers to remind us of their power."

"That's a hell of a way to live," John observed.

Teyla shrugged. "We move around. We try to teach our children not to live in fear. Some of us can sense the Wraith coming, and that gives us a warning to hide. But we should go. It will be dark soon."

Harry took care to study the drawings as they left the cave. The story they told appeared simple, but studying them more thoroughly in a pensieve might show nuances they were missing.

By his estimate, they were halfway back to the camp when the radios they wore crackled to life.

"Colonel," Bates said, "we have gate activity here."

"Defensive positions," John ordered, but Ford spoke over him.

"Three bandits headed toward the settlement, sir!"

Teyla had paused, and Harry caught up to her. "What is it?"

" _Wraith_ ," she all but snarled and broke into a run. Harry dashed after her, and John was only half a step behind them.

"They're on the ground, Colonel," Bates reported with an edge of fear in his voice. "All around us."

"Do your best," John said, but Teyla had stopped and was frowning at him. "What?"

"They can make you see things that aren't there," she said. "Do not trust your eyes."

"Concentrate fire on the ships," John ordered even as he started running again, tucking in behind Teyla as best he could. "What you see on the ground is just an illusion."

"Copy that," Ford replied, but there was no acknowledgement from Bates.

After a moment, they heard Ford yelling, "Bates! Snap out of it, Bates!"

"They're everywhere," came Bates' frantic cry.

There was a rustle through the radio and then Ford's order. "See that? Take it down!"

A Wraith fighter screamed overhead, and Harry dove to his left, following John instinctively. A light beam played over the ground where they'd been running, then went dark.

John scrambled to his feet, "Teyla?"

"Sir, Bates has been taken," Ford reported.

Harry cast a silent Reveal Person spell. "So has Teyla."

"Dammit," John muttered.

"Colonel, the gate's coming on again," Ford all but shouted. "Two enemy ships approaching."

"Let them go," John responded. "There are friendlies on board. Look at the dialing device and burn those symbols into your mind. We'll need them," he finished, glancing grimly at Harry.

Harry nodded and together they made their way back to the settlement, where wreckage of a ship smoldered.

"At least we know our weapons work on their ships," Harry observed. "Small comfort, but still."

A rustling near their feet drew their attention, and Harry winced as he saw a severed forearm crawling toward them.

"Son of a -" The rest of John's curse was cut off by rifle fire as he double-tapped the arm.

"Help me!" A boy ran up - the one they'd first met. "I can't find my father!"


	11. Chapter 11

John stepped through the gate and into Atlantis, turning immediately to those behind him.

"Step through, folks," he said. "Move away from the puddle."

"Who are these people?" Weir demanded as she hurried up to him.

"Survivors," John said. "The Wraith attacked - Bates and a few others were taken." Then the bustle of activity registered. "What's going on?"

"We were about to abandon the city," she said.

John shook his head. "Going back there is a bad idea."

"Colonel." Weir's tone took on an _I'm in charge_ note that John didn't like. "The shield is about to fall, and the ocean's about to come crashing in on us. Do you have any better place to go?"

John glanced around and waved to the boy - Jinto - who'd been second through the gate after him. "You have any other address we can gate to, Jinto?"

"Many," Jinto answered.

"He's just a boy," Weir objected.

John started to reply, but Harry's voice stopped him.

"I went to war when I was his age, Dr. Weir," Harry said. "Stop making assumptions based on your own experience."

Weir's mouth dropped open. John ignored her, instead grabbing Jinto's arm and rushing up the stairs to the control room.

The city beneath them shifted, and John stumbled over the bottom steps.

"The shield's collapsing!" McKay shouted.

The city kept shaking, and John levered himself and Jinto up the steps mostly by sheer stubbornness.

Peter Grodin dove for the gate control. "I'm dialing an address."

"No," Harry's voice came up. "Wait!"

John glared over his shoulder at his cousin, who stood both remarkably steady and remarkably calm in the middle of the gate room.

"He's right," McKay said from a place near Grodin. "The city's not shaking so much as it's _moving_."

John focused on the city, the movement beneath his feet. "Lifting off the ocean floor," he murmured.

Minutes later, the city seemed to settle in place and systems started to come back online. John crossed to a window, staring as the last bits of the city cleared the ocean surface.

"We've surfaced," Harry said unnecessarily.

"I was hoping for another day," Weir said with a smile. "It looks like we just got a lot more than that, so let's not waste it."

"Captain Lorne," John said, "get the crates and equipment cleared away from the gate and organize temporary billets for our guests."

"Aye, sir," the captain replied, and John turned to McKay and Weir.

"Status?" he asked.

"The last ZPM is depleted," McKay said. "But limited power has returned now that our own generators aren't holding back an ocean. Life support systems are working, but this planet's atmosphere is breathable. Not counting the inevitable allergens."

"So could our naquadah generator supply enough power to the shield for defensive purposes?" Weir asked.

John knew the answer even before McKay said, "Not even close."

Being on the surface without a shield was a problem - but not John's highest-priority problem. That was, "When can you tell me where the Wraith took Ford and the others?"

"Even with the six symbols Lieutenant Ford provided," McKay began, "there are hundreds of permutations -"

"Seven hundred twenty," John said. "But we don't need to go through all of them - do we, Harry?"

He turned to Harry to find his cousin scowling. "Really, John? You think now's the time?"

"I think rescuing our people from enemy hands before they reveal where we are - or worse, where Earth is - is exactly the right time."

"Bugger," Harry muttered. "I really can't argue that. Lieutenant Ford?"

"Sir?" Ford stepped forward.

"I need the memory of the symbols you saw."

"I told you -"

"No," Harry said. "I don't want what your conscious mind remembers. I need your actual memory."

"Are you talking about hypnosis?" Weir asked. "We don't have time for that -"

"I'm talking about something else entirely," Harry said, his attention never wavering from Ford. "It won't hurt, I promise."

Ford glanced from him to John. "Sir?"

"You have my word, Lieutenant," John said. "I've let him see my memories before, and it doesn't hurt."

Ford looked uncertain for a moment, then straightened. "If it gets our people back and keeps us safe, I'm ready."

"Good man. Just take a few breaths, in and out, and let your mind drift back over the moments when you watched the gate address come in."

"Okay." Ford sounded confident.

"Open your eyes," Harry said. Ford did, and Harry said, " _Legilimens._ "

Not ten seconds later, Harry turned away from Ford and crossed to where Grodin still sat at the control panel. "May I?"

Grodin shifted away and Harry typed in an address on Grodin's laptop. "Ready to send one of those robot things," Harry said.

"A MALP," McKay answered. "Mobile Analytic -"

"Colonel." Weir's voice sounded at his side. "A word?"

John gave a silent sigh. This was the worst possible time for the inevitable confrontation with her - but then again, no time would ever be good.

He followed her to the back of the control room, and as she drew near to a window, it slid open, revealing a balcony. With the barest glance at John, Weir stepped cautiously outside.

"Wow," Weir breathed.

The view was momentarily spectacular - the city laid out below them, the ocean stretching as far as the eye could see - but John suspected it could get boring quickly.

"Let me guess," John said. "You don't think I should rescue my people."

"You don't even know if they're alive, Colonel," Weir said.

"I do know that you don't leave people in the hands of the enemy," John said. "And you know damn well that it's wrong to do so - otherwise you'd be having this discussion inside."

"We're talking about an enemy that defeated the Ancients," Weir protested. "When we first started using the stargate on Earth, we got into trouble because the people in charge didn't consider the ramifications before they reacted."

"They took our people," John said. "How are we supposed to react?"

"We're defenseless!" Weir said. "You know it as well as I do. How do you know going off on some half-assed rescue mission isn't going to bring the Wraith right back to our doorstep?"

"It might," John allowed. "But _not_ going after them will _definitely_ bring them here."

"You don't know that," Weir protested.

"They're in the hands of the _enemy_ , Doctor," John bit out. "Do you know what that means, or must I paint a picture?"

"I just - I need more information," Weir said. "Maybe we can negotiate -"

"And this is why you're not in command of the military," John snapped. "There's never _enough_ information, and there's never _perfect_ information. You do the best you can with the information you have."

Weir straightened and glared at him. "I'm the leader of this expedition, and I -"

"You are a _civilian_ , Doctor. There's only one civilian anyone in the military answers to, and the President isn't here." John frowned as a thought occurred to him. "Then again, the President is the Commander-in-Chief of all of the United States armed forces, so he's not really a civilian, either."

"I will not authorize a rescue mission," Weir said. "Not without more information."

"I don't need your authorization, Doctor."

:-:-:-:-:

John strode back into the control room. "We ready to dial that address?"

"Yes, sir," Grodin said. Then, as he punched in the symbols Harry had given him, he said, "How did Mr. Potter get it?"

John flicked a glance at Harry, who nodded grimly. "I promise I'll answer that after we get back, Dr. Grodin. Right now, our people are our first priority."

"Yes, sir," Grodin said, and John saw the speculative expressions on McKay's face and Lorne's as he rejoined them.

In the gate room below them, the gate swirled to life.

"Readying the MALP," a technician whose name John didn't know but resolved to learn said.

"Send it through," John ordered, and the MALP rolled up the ramp and through the gate.

"We're receiving visual telemetry," the technician reported, though the screen receiving images from the MALP remained dark.

"I can't see anything," Weir said - and John was surprised he hadn't registered her return.

"No atmospheric readings at all," McKay said, and then a small point of dim light flickered on the screen.

"What was that?" John asked.

"Rotate the camera," McKay ordered, and a minute later, the view on the screen shifted to show rocks floating in space and rings surrounding a planet. A stargate floated in orbit above the planet, its wormhole still active.

"There goes that MALP," McKay said.

"A stargate in space?" John said.

"Appears to be in high orbit around a planet on the far side of the galaxy," McKay offered by way of clarification.

"Are you sure this is the right address?" Weir demanded.

"I'm sure," Harry said.

"And while that's good enough for some people," McKay said with a dark look at John, who just smiled grimly back, "I did eliminate all the permutations we couldn't get a lock on, and this is the only one that was left."

"I'm sorry, Colonel," Weir said. "We don't have the capability to mount a rescue mission after all."

"Then we'd best get ready to leave this planet," John said, shoving down his anger at the realization that she was right. "And sink the city again, if we can."

Weir turned away. After she'd gone, McKay looked up from where he'd still been watching the screen.

"Colonel?" he said. "Come with me."

"I'll get things started, sir," Lorne said, and with that assurance John followed McKay out of the control room.

McKay led him to - of all things - a hangar bay. More impressively, it was a hangar bay full of ships small enough to pass through a stargate, but large enough to hold a dozen people, maybe more.

McKay preceded him up the ramp and into one of the craft. "Think you can fly it?"

"Let's find out." John slipped into the pilot's seat and felt it conform to his body, even more than the chair in Antarctica had done.

_So, sweetheart,_ he thought, _let's see what you can do._


	12. Chapter 12

Harry would've been more nervous about his first ride in an unknown alien - _alien!_ \- spacecraft if his cousin hadn't been flying it, but if the Potter men inherited anything besides unruly dark hair, it was skill at flying. Even if John flew aircraft and Harry flew broomsticks.

So he happily slid into the seat behind John in the pilot's chair, looking forward to his first trip into space. Lieutenant Ford took the co-pilot's chair, and Seamus Finnigan sat behind Ford. A team of eight Marines occupied seats in the compartment behind the cockpit.

"When I was little," Seamus said, "I wanted to be an astronaut. Took a while, but I made it."

"Yes, you did," John replied as the craft - which John had taken to calling a Puddle Jumper, over Ford's objections - rose smoothly into the air. "Flight, this is Puddle Jumper. We are go for launch."

"Puddle …" McKay broke off. "Fine. Puddle Jumper, you are clear for launch."

"Dial the gate, Lieutenant," John said, and Harry watched Ford type in the address. He bit back a grin as Seamus gasped at the gate activating.

Harry held his breath as John flew the ship toward the gate and then through it. In a moment not too unlike Apparating, they were through the gate and into space.

"This is cool," John said, sounding somewhat awed.

"Looks like you've got the hang of it already," Harry murmured.

"I know a lot of fighter pilots who'd kill to fly this thing," John replied. "It's like it reads your mind."

John had barely finished speaking when a display appeared superimposed on the windscreen.

"Did you do that?" Ford asked nervously.

"I was just wondering where we go from here," John replied.

"I'll take that as a yes." Ford swallowed. "So how do we find them once we land?"

"I've been thinking about that, too," John said and glanced over his shoulder at Harry.

Before Harry could reply, a small hand-held device popped out of the wall to John's left. John removed it and tucked it into a pocket.

"Now I'm thinking about a nice turkey sandwich," John said, and Harry debated producing one from his dimensional store, but decided not to mess with his cousin. Yet.

Ford shrugged. "Worth a try."

Minutes later, they had landed close to a large structure of some kind. The structure itself was surrounded by forest, and Harry wondered whether it was overconfidence or stupidity that led the builders not to leave a killing ground. Unless, of course, the structure had been here so long that the forest had started growing back around it.

John nodded to Ford, who rose and headed to the back. "Lock and load," he ordered.

As John made to rise from his seat, Harry rested a hand on his shoulder. "I'll go."

"But -" John began.

"You're the only one who can fly this thing," Harry said.

"You can fly -"

"Not this. Not yet," Harry added. "But until I and some of the others learn, you're our only way out of here."

John's expression set in stubborn lines. "I have the life sign tracker."

" _That_ I can use," Harry said. "Besides, I put tracking charms on everyone who went to Athos."

"Harry -"

"Don't make me stick you to your seat, John." The words were friendly enough, but Harry saw John's shoulders slump ever so slightly in defeat.

"Fine. But you're showing me the memory later."

"Deal." Harry clapped him on the shoulder and joined Seamus, Ford, and the others at the rear of the puddle jumper.

"Teams of two," Ford was saying. "Learn what you can, lay down defenses you deem necessary. If we have to, I want to light this place up."

"Do not engage the enemy unless absolutely necessary," Ford continued. "Two clicks, wait for a responding two, and you're clear to talk."

"Yes, sir," the Marines said. Harry and Seamus nodded.

Ford tapped Harry. "You're with me."

Harry followed Ford into the building and exchanged a surprised glance with the other man at how easy their entrance was. The rest of the crew followed them and split up once they were inside.

"Where to?" Ford asked.

Harry checked the device John had given him and, surreptitiously, his tracking charms. "This way."

They moved quickly but quietly, Harry casting silent Reveal Person spells as they approached every junction, despite the readout on the device he held, to confirm that his magic worked on these Wraith as well as it did on humans.

He hissed at Ford and took cover in a shadowy side corridor. A being - a Wraith, presumably, and apparently male - stalked down the main passage where they had been only seconds before.

Once the Wraith had passed, Ford let out a breath. "I thought getting in would be the hard part, but that's the first one we've seen."

"Small victories, Lieutenant," Harry muttered. He was about to move forward when he realized that Ford was setting explosives in the corridor.

For a moment, he debated telling Ford not to bother, but decided against it. Every little bit of destructive power helped, after all.

"There's a bunch of people up ahead, just around the bend," he told Ford. A silent Reveal spell told him, "Clustered together - maybe confined?"

"Let's go," Ford said.

It was a cell, all right - full of Athosians and Terran military. Teyla came forward first. "Harry?"

He held one finger to his lips and spoke more softly, "Are you all right?"

"How did you find us?" Teyla demanded, but before Harry could formulate a reply, Halling stepped forward.

"Is my son alive?" he asked.

"Alive and well and waiting for you," Ford replied. He surveyed the cell's inhabitants, frowning. "Where's Sergeant Bates?"

"The Wraith took him," Teyla said. "We don't know where."

"When?" Ford asked.

"I don't have a timepiece," she returned. "But not long."

Ford blew out a breath. "It couldn't have been easy all the way."

"You get these people out of here and back to the jumper," Harry said. "I'll take this and get Bates."

"He may not be alive when you find him," Halling said.

Harry met the other man's gaze. "If there's one thing I know, it's that you never leave a man behind."

"Jesus," Ford breathed. "It's like you were my drill sergeant just then, Potter."

"There's more than one way to go to war, Lieutenant," Harry replied. "I'll comm you when we're on the way back."

Then he hurried down the corridor, a Silencing Charm ensuring he made no noise no matter how quickly he moved.

He came across a handful of Wraiths - all male, or apparently so, and was that a quirk of their biology or of their culture? He shook the question aside without breaking stride - and Stunned and Body Bound each one as he passed.

He heard a scream echo through the corridor and put on a burst of speed. The Tracking Charm and the device the Puddle Jumper had provided both guided him unerringly and he careened around a corner, stopping at the sight of some kind of grate set into the wall.

Quietly, Harry Disillusioned himself and hurried forward to look through the bars of the grate.

Harry found himself overlooking a dining room, only beyond the table and chairs, a figure with magenta-red hair and clad in a white gown of sorts had splayed her hand over the bared chest of Sergeant Bates, who was kneeling before her - and apparently was the source of the scream he'd heard.

Two guards stood on opposite sides of the room, one to his left and the other to his right.

"Right, then," Harry muttered. He took a breath and cast. " _Diffindo. Stupefy. Stupefy."_

In rapid succession, the red-haired Wraith's arm dropped to the floor, blood spurting from the brachial artery, and the two male Wraiths collapsed.

The red-haired one whirled to face him with a shriek, and he hit her with a Leg-Locker Curse. She fell to the ground.

A Blasting Curse took care of the grate, and Harry started to jump down into the dining room. A whisper of motion, or a whiff of a scent behind him made him spin in place just in time to see a male Wraith advancing with a weapon drawn.

" _Reducto._ "

The curse blew the Wraith to pieces.

Harry set up a ward with a warning alarm, then turned back to the dining room below and jumped through the opening where the grate had been.

Where, much to his surprise, the red-haired Wraith, who he could now confirm was female, was already starting to regrow her arm. He threw Body-Bind Curses at the males who were still unconscious as he crossed to face the female.

Behind her, he could see Bates - only Bates looked far older than he had before, wasted, almost desiccated.

_Like he'd been Kissed._

"Well," the female Wraith said as she struggled to rise. "What are you?"

"Your end," Harry said, not feeling the slightest bit melodramatic, and he sent Severing Charms at each of her arms. The pieces of her body fell to the floor, blood and other bodily bits spewing.

She screamed, and Harry stepped forward to stand over her torso. "One of those to your head and your heart - if you've got one - should kill you."

To his surprise, she smiled. "You don't know what you have done. We are merely the caretakers for those that sleep. When I die, the others will awaken. All of them."

Her words held a terrifying promise, one that Harry had to investigate. He hit her with a Stasis Charm and turned to look at Bates more closely.

Bates appeared to be alive - though Harry had no idea how long that would last, so he cast a Stasis Charm on Bates, too, and steeled himself before approaching the fallen she-Wraith.

" _Legilimens._ "

Harry swallowed back bile at the slick amorality of the Wraith's mind. He found no sense of right and wrong, only survival - and how could that be, given that they were a spacefaring society?

Then again, she'd identified herself as a _caretaker_. Perhaps her role, and therefore her outlook on life, was more limited than others'?

Harry put the thought aside, instead searching her mind for specific knowledge. Her words had indicated that her death would alert other Wraith… and there it was. The species was telepathic, to a degree Harry would never - could never - have imagined.

In addition to being telepathic with each other, she was also telepathic with humans … and she'd gotten information from Bates about Earth - its location and population. The _new feeding ground_ , she'd called it, even as she fed on Bates' life energy.

Bugger.

He couldn't kill her and risk not only waking the other Wraith - _all of them_ , she'd said - but also giving them knowledge, however slight, of Earth. At the same time, he couldn't let her live with that knowledge intact.

Which meant there was only one thing to do. Harry withdrew from her mind and pointed his wand at her. " _Obliviate._ "

That took care of the knowledge of Earth … but if she died, wouldn't the other Wraith - _all of them_ \- also wake up? Even if they didn't know about Earth, they'd know _something_ had happened… and they'd still be awake, still be more of a threat than the few Wraith Harry had already seen.

He had to do something, but what? John would have ideas for the longer term, but for now -

He summoned a Draught of Living Death from his store and spelled it into the Wraith's stomach. That would keep her from sharing any information for the foreseeable future, but what was he supposed to do about the other Wraith around? He couldn't kill them for the same reason he couldn't kill her -

Or could he?

He sorted through her memories and reviewed her words once more. " _We are merely the caretakers for those that sleep. When I die, the others will awaken._ "

She'd said _we_ are the caretakers, but when _I_ die, the others will wake. That meant the Wraith around him probably weren't privy to whatever information she'd gotten from Bates.

And that gave him a choice he hadn't had before. He pulled out the galleon he'd enchanted with the Protean Charm and Transfigured it so it showed one word: Fiendfyre.

He double-clicked his radio. "Everyone out, fast as you can, back to the Puddle Jumper. We're torching this place. Finnigan, acknowledge order."

"Acknowledged," Seamus replied immediately. "Already on it."

"Harry, what -?" John sounded more than surprised, but Harry didn't have time to answer his questions now.

"A little busy, cousin," Harry replied and cut the connection. " _Mobilicorpus. Mobilicorpus._ "

Both the she-Wraith and Bates rose from the floor and floated toward the grate where Harry had entered the dining room. He willed them out of the room and into the corridor above. Then he pulled his broom from his store and re-sized it.

He floated up to the corridor, double-checked for approaching enemies, levitated his passengers once again, and, with the way before him clear - for the moment, at least - turned back to point his wand into the dining room.

" _Fiendfyre._ "

:-:-:-:-:

John paced at the entrance to the Puddle Jumper. He'd tried staying in the pilot's chair, but it chafed not to be out there, to be trying to rescue his comrades. Harry had a solid point - and a mean sticking charm, when it came to that - but John hated being the one left behind.

Which just meant that he'd have to get more gene-carriers trained to fly the jumpers, so he wouldn't always be the one left behind.

John grinned at the thought of teaching his cousin to fly, and then winced as some of the more outlandish things Harry might do in an aircraft crossed his mind.

A glance at his watch told him that the others had been gone more than fifteen minutes. Fifteen very long minutes.

A quick radio communication from Ford that he was bringing captives out sent John back into the jumper to survey the rear compartment.

"We could really use some extra seating," he said, and then had to jump out of the way as the seats rearranged themselves a bit.

John counted - there was room for twenty now - and smiled. "Excellent."

Talking to the jumper felt only a little unusual. John had often talked to the aircraft he flew, whether in his mind or aloud. The fact that the jumper responded, though - that was new, and different, and exciting as all hell even at the same time it was somewhat terrifying.

A noise had him raising his P-90 and leveling it at the woods surrounding the jumper - _getting in the pilot's seat might've been a better idea_ \- only for him to relax when Ford emerged from the forest, a knot of people both Athosian and Terran following him.

John gestured the new arrivals to seats - noting that Teyla moved toward the front of the craft, just behind the cockpit - murmuring reassurance and answering questions as he could.

The coin in his pocket - the one coin he carried everywhere, the one Harry had enchanted and given to him - warmed. He pulled it out and saw that its surface held one word: Fiendfyre.

Before he could completely process that, Harry's voice came through his earpiece. "Everyone out, fast as you can, back to the Puddle Jumper. We're torching this place. Finnigan, acknowledge order."

"Acknowledged," Seamus replied immediately. "Already on it."

"Harry, what -?" John began, unable to keep the surprise from his voice. He didn't know much about magic, but Fiendfyre was one spell Harry refused to use, almost on principle. That he chose to use it now meant things were worse than John had expected.

"A little busy, cousin," Harry replied and cut the connection.

John grimaced and returned to settling the rescued prisoners.

They'd just gotten the last of the former prisoners settled, and the Marines were taking their places, when Harry's voice came through the comm again.

"Inbound," Harry reported. "We'll want to be in the air pronto - not sure how long before the facility blows. Ford was quite diligent in laying down the explosives."

John was diving for the pilot's seat before Harry finished speaking.

He'd left the jumper ready, of course - impossible to have a quick getaway when you had to start the engines, or whatever the Ancient equivalent was - but if Harry wanted to move out fast, John needed to be in the pilot's seat.

Minutes later, a faint orange glow lit the night sky, followed by a commotion at the back of the jumper. John twisted in his seat to look over his shoulder, only to gape at the two bodies floating through the air, over the passengers' heads, toward him.

The bodies were followed by Harry and the other wizard who'd come with them, Seamus Finnigan.

"Secure the hatch," John ordered, and before anyone could move, the rear doors started to close. He still had to get used to technology that responded to his thoughts, but manners had him responding, "Thanks," almost automatically.

The bodies continued into the cockpit, and Harry and Finnigan manhandled them into the rear seats - over the angry murmurs from the passengers.

"Harry, what -?"

"Get us in the air, John," Harry replied. "Now. The problem with Fiendfyre is that it's hard to control - and in this case, we didn't want to control it."

John was already ordering the jumper into the air. "Isn't that a dark spell?"

"Dark doesn't mean evil, remember," Harry replied. "And it's the only method I know of to destroy that base completely."

"We wanted to destroy it, why?" Ford asked from the co-pilot's chair. "And who's - wait, is that _Bates_?"

"It's Sergeant Bates," Harry confirmed. "I didn't get there fast enough to save him completely. As to why we're destroying the base - it's got a lot of Wraith in it, and the only way to stop them is to kill them."

"And yet you brought a queen with you."

The rebuke came from behind Harry and Seamus, and John barely recognized Teyla's harsh voice.

"The alternative is worse," Harry said. "But right now, she can't hurt anyone. Draught of Living Death," he added to John.

John blew out a breath as the jumper cleared the planet's atmosphere. "It's gonna be a long debriefing."


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for naughty words again, just to be on the safe side.

Once they got back to Atlantis, John set Ford to getting Bates to the infirmary and the rescued prisoners settled into temporary billets while he hung back in the jumper with Harry.

"What the hell, Harry?" John asked - which, he realized after the words had left his mouth, wasn't the best way to open a request for an after-action report.

"I'll give more detail at the debriefing," Harry replied. "Short version - that's a Wraith queen. They're telepathic - and she got Earth's location from Bates. I Obliviated her - but it was a quick and dirty job. I want to do a better one before we decide what to do with her."

"What to do with her?" John repeated. "You mean - what do you mean?"

"She said if she dies, _all_ of the Wraith wake up." Harry's expression turned serious. "They're telepathic, John."

John blew out a breath. A telepathic enemy was a huge problem, one that couldn't be dealt with immediately. An immediate problem was, "What happened to Bates?"

"She - fed on him, I guess is the best way to explain it." Harry ran a hand through his hair. "I don't know how long he'll survive, but I put a Stasis Charm on him to be safe."

"And?" John prompted. "There's more to it, isn't there?"

"And to give me a chance to get his memories before he dies. I didn't see everything - I saw enough, but not everything."

"Is everything important?"

Harry glared at him. "Weir tried to stop us from rescuing him, claiming she wanted more information. She's going to get more information than she probably wanted, but everyone needs to know what we're facing in this galaxy."

"Okay." John held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I'll defer to you on this. How do you want to handle it?"

"Carson and Sophie will help me retrieve Bates' memories, as well as keep him alive long enough to verify them for everyone else," Harry said.

"That's … cold."

"John - the Wraith aren't like anything you've ever heard of before." Harry's tone was serious. "I don't like it, but we're facing hard decisions, and the only way to make them is with all the information we can get."

John blew out a breath. "Fine. And the Wraith … queen, Teyla called her?"

"We need a place to keep her securely," Harry said. "A prison - a brig, I think you call it?"

"I don't know if Atlantis has anything like that -"

John broke off when a holographic map of the city appeared before him. A section in a tower not far from where they stood glowed softly red.

"Huh. Guess so," John said. "I'll assign a couple of Marines to guard her -"

"And I'll ask Dean and Dennis to, also," Harry said. "Two reasons," he added before John could ask the question. "First, she shrugs off minor injuries, and your Marines shoot to kill."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It is." Harry regarded John gravely. "Because if she dies, all the other Wraith wake up, remember? Dean and Dennis can stop her non-lethally."

John nodded, his mind racing to an inevitable conclusion. "You want to use a pensieve."

"I brought a few," Harry said, then quirked a grin. "Redundant backups, you might say." He sobered again. "All but one of them are capable of projection, so everyone can see it at the same time."

"How long do you need?"

Harry considered the question for a moment. "An hour, maybe a little longer."

"Last question," John said. "Who do you want to brief, knowing that you'll be telling them about magic?"

"Damned if I know," Harry answered, altogether too cheerfully for John's peace of mind. "The military have a need to know, no question. Much as I may dislike her, Weir and her diplomatic team do, too - the Wraith have impacted this galaxy in ways we can't begin to imagine, at least until we understand what the Wraith _are_."

"Dementors?" John asked.

Harry made a _so-so_ gesture with his hand. "We didn't have the opportunity to use a Patronus against them, so I can't say for sure yet. But they act like Dementors - feeding and such - and are far more intelligent than Dementors. Maybe … second cousins, once or twice removed, genetically speaking? The difference between a German Shepherd and a Chihuahua, maybe. Still obviously related, but significant differences."

"Evolutionary change, maybe?" John offered.

"Depends on how long each one lives and how they reproduce - and _thank you_ for that image I didn't need in my brain," Harry finished with a huff. Then he looked up at John, his expression the most serious John had ever seen. "I fucked up."

John blinked. "What?"

"I was thinking, while I was bringing Bates and the Wraith back. It's my fault the Wraith attacked."

John blinked. "How did you come to that conclusion?"

"I think that when I destroyed Teyla's necklace," Harry began, then stopped and started again. "When Voldemort's horcruxes were destroyed, they all emitted a shriek and a stream of black smoke."

John got it immediately. "You think the necklace had some sort of fail-safe or dead man switch - when it was destroyed, it alerted its creators - the Wraith." John frowned. "I'd been thinking that it was just a coincidence, that the Wraith were already on the way to Athos when we arrived, but …" he blew out a breath. "The travel time from their planet to Athos is measured in seconds, thanks to the gate. Not more than a minute, at any rate. Then you only need to add time for their pilots to scramble to the ships. Another minute, maybe. Fuck."

"It's the only thing that makes sense," Harry said. "And I didn't even think of it. Bloody useless, I am!"

"Not useless," John said. "I mean, honestly - if you hadn't been here, one of us might've just killed that Wraith bitch, and then where would we be? Up a creek without a paddle, and that's the best-case scenario."

"You Americans - always with the colorful phrasing." But at least Harry seemed a little lighter than he had before. "Next time you invite me to another galaxy, remind me to bring a curse-breaker."

"Why didn't you this time?" John asked, careful to keep the question curious, not accusatory.

"Because most of them are pure-bloods or goblins," Harry replied. "Wouldn't have got past the first screening on blending in with non-magical society."

John grinned briefly. Then he sobered. "Brief everyone?"

"Everyone from Earth, anyway," Harry agreed, then rolled his shoulders. "I don't like telling the Athosians, but Teyla watched me do magic."

"They all watched you do magic," John reminded him. "You remember, floating two bodies into the jumper?"

"Yes, well, you've been telling me for years - decades, even - that anti-gravity technology isn't that far-fetched."

"Which is worse - telling them about magic, or letting them believe we have more technology than we do?" John mused. Then an idea occurred to him. "Or Memory Charm them?"

"We could," Harry agreed. "But if we want them to be allies - and we will need allies, at least until we regain contact with Earth - maybe not?"

"Damn it," John muttered on an exhale. "But they don't need to know everything, do they?"

Harry quirked an eyebrow at him, then nodded. "Separate briefings."

"Our people first in two hours, then. The Athosians after."

:-:-:-:-:

Two hours later, Harry watched the military and civilians of the Atlantis Expedition assemble in a large room that might once have been used for entertainment, or maybe religious gatherings. A raised dais took up about half the width of the far wall, and he with his back against the wall opposite it.

John strode in and climbed the two steps to the dais itself and took up a place behind a small table, on which Harry had placed one of his pensieves. He'd already retrieved memories from and Memory Charmed the Wraith queen - though he sincerely hoped he would never, ever, have to deal with a mind like hers again.

"Thank you for coming," John said, and his voice carried through the hall enough to quiet the murmurs of conversation that were a natural occurrence in a group this size.

John looked up, meeting Harry's gaze. Harry cast as many privacy charms as he knew and nodded to his cousin. They were as secure as they could be.

When the assembled crowd fell silent, John spoke again. "I'll remind you that this project is still classified. What is discussed in this room is not to be discussed with anyone outside it."

There was a rustling near the front of the room and Elizabeth Weir stood, turning slightly so that everyone could see her as she said, "We can't leave potential allies in the dark, Colonel."

"I don't intend to," John replied. "At the same time, I'm sure as hell _not_ going to discuss anything classified with them. I hope you don't intend to, either - I'd hate to have to find a brig for you."

Even at this distance, Harry could see Weir's flushed, angry face. She sat down, scowling.

"Colonel." This time it was Captain Lorne who stood. "What about those currently on guard and medical duty?"

"I'll personally brief them later," John assured him. Then he regarded the rest of the room. "Please don't expect a debriefing of every mission we undertake while here on Atlantis, but after the events on Athos and then on -"

John glanced to the side at Rodney McKay, who cleared his throat and rose to his feet to address the assembly.

"The planet has no entry in the database," he said. "For convenience, we have designated it P-666. Yes, the number of the beast," McKay snapped, and Harry bit back a grin. "It seemed appropriate," McKay continued, "and _P-Here There Be Dragons_ was too clunky."

The audience rippled with soft laughter. McKay sat down with a grumbled, "I work with a bunch of children."

"After the events on P-666," John began again, "it's imperative that you all know what led to the decisions that have been made. Shortly after we arrived on Atlantis, I led a small contingent through the gate to a world we later learned is called Athos. We had a pleasant meeting with some Athosians, but a Wraith attack interrupted that. Some people - Athosian and Terran alike - were taken, culled if you will, by the Wraith. Those who escaped the culling came here to Atlantis, and we mounted a rescue mission for those who were taken."

Even seeing mostly the backs and sides of people's heads, Harry could see general agreement and approval for that decision.

"Using the address the Wraith had dialed when they left Athos, I led a rescue team to P-666," John continued. "It's not in my nature to remain behind, but I was convinced that as the only capable pilot of Ancient technology we have at this time, it was my duty to remain with the ship we took while Lieutenant Ford led the rescue team itself. The team breached the facility we found on planet and split into two parties to initiate a search and rescue operation. At this time, I'm handing the briefing over to Harry Potter."

Harry made his way past the assembly, stepped up beside John, and took a breath. He always hated being the center of attention, even if he'd gotten used to briefings like this one during his time with the Aurors.

"Lieutenant Ford led our party's search," Harry said, "and we found many of those who'd been taken in a cell. Teyla Emmagan, an Athosian, told us that Wraith had taken Sergeant Bates not long before we arrived. While Lieutenant Ford and the others in our party took them out of the facility, I went after Sergeant Bates using a life-sign tracker that we found on the Puddle Jumper."

It was true as far as it went, and for a sanitized briefing like this, Harry was grateful for the simplicity. What was coming would be hard enough.

"I found Sergeant Bates and three Wraith in a dining room - where Sergeant Bates appeared to be the main course."

He'd chosen his words deliberately for the response they'd provoke, and he wasn't surprised by the shock of revulsion that skittered through the crowd.

"Surely not," Elizabeth Weir protested. "I saw the one you brought back - I mean -"

"Did you also see Sergeant Bates?" Harry demanded. "I spoke the literal truth, Dr. Weir. Though she wasn't feeding on his flesh so much as his life energy."

"How?" Rodney McKay demanded. "How's that even possible?"

"You'll have to ask someone with a better understanding of biology than I have for the details," Harry said. "But I can show you the _how_ , if you really want to know."

"Yes!" It wasn't just McKay who spoke, but also about half of the assembled group.

"Dr. Beckett," Harry called, and the other man started. "Have you brought Sergeant Bates?"

"Aye," Beckett replied, "though I dinna like it. He's … verra weak."

"I don't like it, either," John put in. "But this is mission-critical information. Please bring him up to the dais."

A few minutes of wrestling with a wheelchair - and where had that come from? - a wrinkled, white-haired Sergeant Bates sat beside Harry staring at the assembly.

"You're - old!"

Harry glared at the audience in general, not bothering to try to pick out who'd spoken. Beside him, John did, too.

"Thank you for pointing out the obvious," John said. "Or did you think Harry was joking when he said the Wraith queen fed on the sergeant's life energy?"

"This - is this what the Wraith do to those they … cull?" Lorne asked.

"Yes," Harry said clearly. "There was another … body … in the dining room when I arrived. Athosian, as far as we can tell."

Lorne grimaced. "That's awful."

Harry couldn't disagree. "I have the ability to show you Sergeant Bates' memory of what happened to him once he was taken from the cell. You all need to know what we're facing."

He turned and crouched, facing Bates. "Like we discussed before, Sergeant," he said quietly. "Think of what happened between the Wraith taking you from the cell and when you passed out."

After a moment Bates nodded, and Harry touched his wand to Bates' temple. He withdrew the silvery strand and dropped it into the pensieve.

" _Verifico._ " Beckett spoke softly enough that no one in the assembly would hear. He looked up at Harry. "For a non-magical, it's quite good. A bit of bias, but not much."

Harry nodded and started the playback in projection mode, as interested as anyone else - at least in the parts he didn't already know.

The memory wasn't anything unexpected - the escort from the cell, the first shocked sight of the Wraith queen, her taunts in a voice surprisingly commanding - until her mind breached Bates'.

Her presence in Bates' mind was like a storm, and Harry watched it with almost professional interest, wondering whether a memory of Legilimency felt the same. The few times someone had tried it on him, he'd felt either very little (when it was a master performing it) or as though someone were pounding on a door (when it was almost anyone else). Bates, though - Bates tossed in the wind of the Wraith's psychic attack, attempting to keep her at bay by the simple expedient of repeating the Marines' Hymn over and over in his mind.

It wouldn't keep anyone trained out for long, but Harry suspected the Wraith had no need to train - they were, after all, the apparent masters of the Pegasus Galaxy, unchallenged for thousands of years. They had no need to train their skills, and if Harry had learned anything, it was that those who were unchallenged eventually got lazy.

Finally, the sergeant's memory ended at the moment Harry threw a stasis charm on him. Harry had wished to end the memory sooner than that, but given Bates' lack of formal mental discipline, it had been a long shot at best.

Silence followed the end of the memory. Harry let it linger just to the edge of uncomfortable before he turned to Bates.

"I'm sorry to make you relive that, Sergeant," he said softly. "Is that how you remember it?"

"Yes, sir. That's exactly how it happened." Bates' voice might have thinned, as though with age, but it filled the hall.

Harry looked up at Beckett. "That's all we need the sergeant for. Take him back to the infirmary."

Beckett nodded, and a few minutes later, he and Bates had left the room.

"Why did you bring the Wraith queen here?" Lorne said into the quiet.

Harry glanced at John, who took a step forward. "To determine how to proceed."

"Isn't it obvious?" someone Harry didn't know demanded. "Kill her!"

John held up a hand before too many people could voice their agreement.

Harry spoke before John could. "Killing her is the last thing we can do."

This time, the crowd did erupt. Harry joined John in asking for silence. When they didn't get it immediately, Harry cast a Sonorus Charm and said, "Quiet, please."

The crowd quieted rather abruptly as Harry ended the charm and regarded them gravely.

"You saw how the Wraith queen plucked information from Sergeant Bates' mind," Harry said. "Their species is telepathic, capable of communicating mind to mind. It's how they make you see things that aren't there."

"You also heard the population of our galaxy," John put in. "There are billions of people on our homeworld alone. She was … well … _salivating_ at the thought of such a rich _feeding ground_."

Harry watched that sink in, then John spoke again.

"We originally came here on a quest for knowledge," he said. "Of the people we call the Ancients, yes, but also knowledge of their technology, so we can better fight the Goa'uld and the Ori -who, frankly, are far less threatening than the Wraith. Our primary mission now is to prevent knowledge of Earth and our galaxy from spreading to the Wraith. We can't kill the queen and risk that knowledge being spread to _all_ the remaining Wraith."

"Who," Harry added, "secure in their knowledge of a new _feeding ground_ would surely not feel the need to make sure anyone in _this_ galaxy survived before they left it."

Which would be a spectacularly horrible strategy on their part, Harry mused while the crowd murmured. The better strategy would be to leave whatever peoples survived in Pegasus alone, feed on the inhabitants of the Milky Way until they were nearly extinct, and then return to Pegasus, where the population would surely have rebounded, to start the cycle again.

Thankfully, the Wraith - or at least the one whose mind he'd seen - had no such strategic mind. Complacency again bred laziness.

"The details of what will happen to the Wraith queen will remain with only those who need to know," John concluded.

"We can tell you," Harry said, "that she's currently in a state of suspended animation - alive, but unconscious and unable to send a message to her fellow Wraith. At this time, she is under guard, and we will be advised if her condition changes before we decide what to do with her."

He caught John's blink of surprise, but all his cousin said was, "Any questions?"

"Lots." Rodney McKay stood up. "Starting with what was that - that _thing_ you used to show us Bates' memory? How is that even possible?"

"Ah." Harry grinned. "Did we skip that part?"

"Yes, you did." McKay crossed his arms over his chest. "Well?"

"And now we're at the part of the meeting that is completely, totally, and in all other ways classified," John said, his expression serious as he waited for acknowledging nods from a good number of the audience before he gestured for Harry to continue.

"I'm a wizard," Harry said simply.

He watched shock and disbelief flit across McKay's face - and the faces of most of the others in the room.

"Impossible," McKay declared. "Wizards are the stuff of _Dungeons and Dragons_ , not real life."

But Harry was smiling a bit. "I assume you want proof?"

"Yes! Not that you'll be able to give me any," McKay went on. "Because wizards and magic are _fantasy_ , and -"

" _Expecto Patronum._ "

Prongs leapt from Harry's wand and circled the room.

McKay recovered first. "How many more of you are there?"

"Against the Wraith? Not nearly enough," Harry said. "We weren't expecting them."

"But you were expecting something." The insight came from Elizabeth Weir. "Right? Otherwise you wouldn't have come."

"When I was reading the database in Antarctica," Harry said, "I came across a reference to something I recognized - something that non-magical people have no defense against. When I briefed General O'Neill on it -"

He broke off to wait out the surprised murmur through the crowd, then picked up, "He asked me to find others like me who can fight the Dementors - the things on Earth similar to the Wraith. I did, and some of them joined the expedition."

"How many?" Weir demanded. "An exact number, if you please."

"I don't please," Harry said. "They answer to me, and I answer to John. Some of you -" he grinned at McKay "- might figure it out, but I'm asking you to keep what you know, or think you know, to yourselves."

"As the leader of the expedition -" Weir began, but this time John cut her off.

"The civilian leader," John said. "And Harry's people are _not_ civilians, even if they work in civilian positions. Harry's wand is a _weapon_ , and he's been training to use it since he was eleven, just like the rest of his people. When the time comes - and it _will_ , the only question is _when_ \- they will fight to defend you and Atlantis, so they fall under my command."

Weir fumed silently. Harry understood, at least a little: it was hard to have your position challenged so successfully and so publicly. He decided to attempt a little damage control.

"I was seconded to this program," Harry said, "under General O'Neill's leadership. He instructed me to report to the military commander of the expedition."

"Seconded?" Weir asked. "From where?"

"I'm an Auror," Harry replied. "A combination policeman and soldier."

"And that's really all any of you need to know at this time," John cut in. "All of Harry's people have roles within the expedition as well as serving as an _ad hoc_ militia. Most of the time, the fact that they're magical won't even matter. But when it does, we'll all be grateful that they are."


	14. Chapter 14

The briefing with the Athosians went better than John had dared to hope, given how little he was willing to share with them about the magical members of the expedition. Still, he was confident that, eventually, the Athosians would become allies in fact rather than by happenstance.

That, however, wasn't his bailiwick, so he headed off to the person whose bailiwick it was and, a few minutes later, knocked on the doorframe of the room Elizabeth had chosen as her office.

"Got a minute, Dr. Weir?" he asked.

She looked up from her laptop and waved him in.

He sat in the guest chair and waited patiently while she finished typing whatever she was working on and finally looked up at him, her expression wary.

"Yes, Colonel?"

"I think the Athosians are a good resource for us."

She obviously hadn't been expecting that. "How so?"

"They trade with a number of other worlds, and have knowledge of dozens more," John said. "That knowledge might turn our telephone directory of addresses into a guidebook."

"I'm sure you'll enjoy getting it."

"Me?" John frowned. "Why would you think that?"

"You seem to be taking over everything else on this expedition," she replied, her tone … bitter? It wasn't the right word, but it was the only one John could come up with.

"I didn't take over anything," John replied. "I commanded my men in the proper exercise of their duties."

"But I'm the leader of the expedition," Weir protested.

"Civilian leader, absolutely," John agreed. "And I'm more than happy for you to do that - with the understanding that we're in a war zone. We didn't expect to be, but we are."

"War is a failure of diplomacy. You didn't even try for a diplomatic solution."

"The Wraith opened negotiations by _kidnapping_ our people to _eat them_ ," John reminded her. "When you figure out a diplomatic solution to that, I'm all ears. Until then, I'm going to do everything I can to keep our people from becoming their main course."

"But -" Weir frowned. "Your cousin destroyed their base."

"He destroyed _that_ base. Do you know how many others there are or might be?"

"No, of course not."

"Neither do I. Nobody does. That means we have to be prepared for war wherever we go."

"Even though we're a peaceful expedition?"

" _Si vis pacem, para bellum_ ," John said. "If you want peace …"

"…be prepared for war," Weir finished on a weary exhale.

"Exactly," John said.

"So how is this going to work?" Weir asked.

John didn't let his relief show. When he'd arrived, he hadn't been entirely confident that she'd be willing to work with him. "You do what you do - talk to others, oversee city administration, whatever. I'll do everything I can to keep you safe while you do."

"Nothing in my training prepared me for this," Weir said softly.

"None of us are prepared for an enemy who thinks you'll make a nice meal along with the local version of fava beans and a nice chianti," John said, and didn't regret it when she winced at that description.

"So what do we do?"

"What humanity's always done," John replied. "Adapt and survive."

:-:-:-:-:

John found Harry chatting with Teyla in the mess, cups of coffee or maybe tea on the table between them. He grabbed a cup of coffee and wandered over to the table where they sat.

"Mind if I join you?"

"Not at all," Teyla said, even as Harry waved him to a seat.

"What's up?" Harry asked.

"Just giving Teyla a heads up," he offered with a smile.

Teyla frowned. "What is a _heads up_?"

"Advance warning, basically," Harry replied. "Though sometimes the _advance_ is only a few seconds."

"That was _one time_ ," John protested, but Harry was matching his grin. "Besides, you caught it."

"What are you warning me about?" Teyla asked.

"Dr. Weir wants to talk to you about the other planets in this galaxy," John said. "Not immediately, but soon. Your knowledge will be a great help to us."

"And your ability to destroy the Wraith will be a great help to all worlds," she replied, then rose to her feet. "I will see when Dr. Weir wants to talk."

John nodded a farewell and was amused to see his cousin's gaze following Teyla as she left the mess.

"Good," he said, and Harry's gaze jerked to him.

"What?"

"That you might have found some companionship in this galaxy."

Harry rolled his eyes and John grinned.

"She had an idea, though," Harry said. "About what to do with our sleeping Wraith."

"Oh?" John took another sip of his coffee.

"Why not take her back to P-666 and leave her in the rubble of the base?" Harry said. "Cover her up so she doesn't get eaten by whatever wild animals are around and leave her be."

"Her being eaten by wild animals appeals to my sense of poetic justice," John said. "Too bad we can't let that happen."

"At least not anytime soon," Harry agreed.

"All right, then," John said. "Finish up, and let's go."

"Go?"

"Mm-hm. I'm not going back to P-666 without one of your people, and you need to learn to fly the Jumper. It's a two birds, one stone situation."

"I've known how to fly since I was eleven," Harry protested.

"Yeah, on a broomstick, where it's as much your body movements and muscle shifts as your magic that makes it work. You have to learn to fly with your hands and your mind, like the rest of us."

"Sounds horribly dull," Harry quipped.

"How about helping me figure out a place for an alpha site?"

"Mm." Harry waved his hand in a so-so gesture. "Moderately more entertaining."

"There's just no pleasing some people." John clapped his cousin on the shoulder and headed for the brig.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't the original ending I had in mind for this story, but the ending I originally wrote actually raises a ton of questions and possibilities that I need time to explore the changes that would result from it, and come up with a coherent story around those changes. 
> 
> So, I kept the original ending in a file and, with a bit of tweaking, it will be the first chapter of the sequel, whenever I get said coherent story figured out. Thanks for coming to Pegasus with me! Hope you enjoyed the trip!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [All His Heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23587462) by [Terrahsims](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terrahsims/pseuds/Terrahsims)




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